From: roje revolutionair (roje000@hotmail.com)
Date: 08 Apr 2001 16:03 uur
Thursday 5 April 2001
Lawyers shun summit
Prosecutors say they're being used to control protest
WILLIAM MARSDEN
The Gazette
Quebec prosecutors are threatening to quit a special
eight-member team set up by the provincial government to prosecute
protesters arrested at the Summit of the Americas this month.
They are objecting to what they claim is political
interference with the judiciary on the part of summit organizers.
One prosecutor has already left the team, and others
are expected to follow.
Prosecutors say provincial Justice Minister Paul Begin
has directed them to delay all bail hearings of arrested protesters
for the maximum three full days allowed by law, as a way of
keeping them off the street for the duration of the summit, April
20-22.
"This is political interference, and we should not
stand for it," said one prosecutor who did not wish to be named.
"It's a plan of battle to hold them in jail. We will not accept these
directives."
The Criminal Code allows bail hearings to be delayed
for a maximum of three "clear days" between the day of the arrest and
the day of the hearing. This means that protesters could find
themselves behind bars for five days.
Normally, defendants are processed within 24 hours of
their arrest.Often they are released the same day from a police
station with a promise to appear in court.
The prosecutors also say they do not want to prosecute
people who are protesting against repressive governments represented
at the summit.The Quebec government has built a concrete and
chain-link fence around a large section of the Old City where the
summit is to take place. About 25,000 protesters are expected to show
up.
Jails have been cleared and thousands of police
officers from the Montreal Urban Community force, the RCMP and the
Surete du Quebec are being brought in for security.
Prosecutors say they have been told not to subpoena
police as witnesses during the week of the summit because they
won't be available.
Prosecutors noted that the Criminal Code allows them
to seek publication bans on bail hearings. One prosecutor said
he believes that after the five days of incarceration, charges
will simply be dropped in most cases. He said the provincial government is
just using the judiciary to keep protesters off the streets.
Montreal prosecutors plan to make public within the
next few days a letter of solidarity with the protesters, one
prosecutor said.
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