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Police Didn't Violate Pot Advocate's Rights - Judge
Pubdate: Fri, 26 Aug 2005
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2005 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Debbie Parkes
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
POLICE DIDN'T VIOLATE POT ADVOCATE'S RIGHTS: JUDGE
Justice Says Evidence Doesn't Support Charges
Cops Joined Bloc Pot To Keep Tabs On Members
A judge yesterday threw out arguments that police violated the
constitutional rights of pro-marijuana advocate Marc-Boris St-Maurice when
they joined the Bloc Pot party he founded and arrested him at the party's cafe.
Quebec Court Judge Andre Perreault found St-Maurice guilty of possessing
about three grams of marijuana when he was arrested at the Cafe Marijane in
March 2004. However, he fined him only $300 - substantially less than the
$3,000 St-Maurice was fined in 1997 on a marijuana possession charge.
St-Maurice said it is his fifth conviction. He has one outstanding case in
Ontario.
Clearly, said St-Maurice's lawyer, constitutional rights expert Julius
Grey, Perreault took into consideration arguments that there has been an
evolution in society's views on the use of marijuana.
That Perreault didn't order St-Maurice to pay court costs in the November
2003 case is further evidence he understands the change in views, Grey told
reporters outside the courtroom.
St-Maurice, who said he plans to appeal the decision, disagreed. "The
current public debate does not seem to have swayed the judge in this case,"
he told reporters.
The earlier charge involved about 35 grams of marijuana - 10 times the
amount, so 10 times the fine, he said.
However, in a separate interview, Grey said the judge had no information
regarding the quantity involved in the earlier case.
St-Maurice has since left the Bloc Pot to join the Liberal Party of Canada,
where he said he plans to continue pushing the marijuana cause.
By infiltrating a party to survey its members, police violated the members'
right of privacy and freedom of association, he said.
But Perreault ruled Cafe Marijane was very much a public place. What's
more, with stories that had recently appeared in the media in which
St-Maurice had invited people to go there to smoke pot, police had every
reason to believe that the cafe was a "theatre of criminal activities."
St-Maurice said allowing police to infiltrate political parties should not
be tolerated.
"It breeds a climate of fear and prevents people from being able to
associate democratically without having to look over their shoulder and
wonder whether there's police amongst them," he said.
However, Perreault said none of the evidence suggested police had joined
the party to keep tabs on Bloc Pot members.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman