Post by Okwes on Jul 7, 2007 11:37:32 GMT -5
Harriet Nahanee - 1935 - 2007, Great-Grandmother & Activist
Cameron Ward - www.cameronward.com/docket/
<http://www.cameronward.com/docket/>
Mar 5, 2007
Harriet Nahanee, 1935-2007
February 28, 2007
Harriet Nahanee, an aboriginal elder and activist, died Sunday at the
age of 71. She had recently been released from the Surrey Pretrial
Centre after serving a two week jail sentence for contempt of court for
disobeying a court order made in a civil proceeding in which she was not
named as a party.
Harriet was one of numerous local people who congregated at a Sea to
Sky Highway construction site to demonstrate their displeasure with the
government decision to blast an overland route through the sensitive
Eagleridge Bluffs ecosystem, rather than build a much less obtrusive
tunnel.
No one was charged with any criminal offence as a result of the protest
demonstration. Rather, according to the anachronsitic British Columbia
method of dealing with such matters, the corporate contractors, Peter
Kiewit & Sons Ltd., commenced a sham* civil lawsuit and obtained an
injunction restraining anyone from being in the vicinity of the work
site. Harriet and others were accused of contempt of court when they
ignored the order, and they were sanctioned accordingly, in a process
described by another B.C. jurist as "officially induced abuse of
process", the use of civil proceedings for a collateral criminal
objective.
Ironically, 71 year old Harriet Nahanee, a gentle soul, frail and in ill
health, spent more time in prison than serial convicted sex offender Tom
Ellison, a middle aged teacher who sexually exploited his students and
who was recently sentenced to "house arrest" for his crimes.
Did Harriet Nahanee's punishment fit the "crime" of attempting to speak
out against the desecration of the environment?
Did jailing her, a respected aboriginal elder, do anything to enhance
respect for the courts or for the rule of law?
*In my opinion, the civil action is a sham because it was not commenced
for any reason other than to procure the arrest and punishment of those
persons whose conduct the corporate plaintiffs found objectionable. It
is nothing less than an abuse of the court's process, a civil action
commenced for the collateral purpose of imposing criminal sanctions.
Cameron Ward - www.cameronward.com/docket/
<http://www.cameronward.com/docket/>
Mar 5, 2007
Harriet Nahanee, 1935-2007
February 28, 2007
Harriet Nahanee, an aboriginal elder and activist, died Sunday at the
age of 71. She had recently been released from the Surrey Pretrial
Centre after serving a two week jail sentence for contempt of court for
disobeying a court order made in a civil proceeding in which she was not
named as a party.
Harriet was one of numerous local people who congregated at a Sea to
Sky Highway construction site to demonstrate their displeasure with the
government decision to blast an overland route through the sensitive
Eagleridge Bluffs ecosystem, rather than build a much less obtrusive
tunnel.
No one was charged with any criminal offence as a result of the protest
demonstration. Rather, according to the anachronsitic British Columbia
method of dealing with such matters, the corporate contractors, Peter
Kiewit & Sons Ltd., commenced a sham* civil lawsuit and obtained an
injunction restraining anyone from being in the vicinity of the work
site. Harriet and others were accused of contempt of court when they
ignored the order, and they were sanctioned accordingly, in a process
described by another B.C. jurist as "officially induced abuse of
process", the use of civil proceedings for a collateral criminal
objective.
Ironically, 71 year old Harriet Nahanee, a gentle soul, frail and in ill
health, spent more time in prison than serial convicted sex offender Tom
Ellison, a middle aged teacher who sexually exploited his students and
who was recently sentenced to "house arrest" for his crimes.
Did Harriet Nahanee's punishment fit the "crime" of attempting to speak
out against the desecration of the environment?
Did jailing her, a respected aboriginal elder, do anything to enhance
respect for the courts or for the rule of law?
*In my opinion, the civil action is a sham because it was not commenced
for any reason other than to procure the arrest and punishment of those
persons whose conduct the corporate plaintiffs found objectionable. It
is nothing less than an abuse of the court's process, a civil action
commenced for the collateral purpose of imposing criminal sanctions.