24 February 2020 - Fredericton activist Vaughn Barnett will be returning to court on 27 February 2020, to learn whether he will be spending six months in prison for the unauthorized practice of law. Barnett was previously sentenced to ten days in a provincial jail for the same alleged offence, in January 2007, following a contempt application brought by the Law Society of New Brunswick. After a decade of no complaints against Barnett, the Law Society is now seeking a stiffer sentence for him, due to his legal arguments on behalf of two friends.
In the Court of Queen's Bench, before Chief Justice Tracey DeWare, on 27 January 2020, Barnett argued that he was engaging in community activism, not the practice of law. Aside from assisting one of these two friends in employment standards proceedings - with the prior written consent of the administrative bodies involved, as required by court order - his supposed legal practice comprised little more than writing letters about institutional unlawfulness, Barnett contended. One positive result, he pointed out, was that an illegal warrantless arrest of his other friend was averted, something which even the police should appreciate.
"Activists trying to protect marginalized people when the government or an institution is behaving unlawfully must have the freedom of expression to make arguments about the law," explains Claude Snow, who was awarded the Order of Canada for his work on behalf of the poor, including advocacy for their legal rights. Representing the Comité des 12, a community activist group in the Acadian Peninsula that is issuing a separate news release in support of Barnett, Snow states, "The most ironic thing is throwing in jail a citizen who exposes others' illegal behaviour."
Echoing this view, Dan Weston, Coordinator of the Fredericton Anti-Poverty Organization (FAPO), and recent candidate for the provincial Green Party, calls the Law Society's application for imprisonment "classic criminalization of dissent." He adds, "It's all the more abominable because its target is a person who is only trying to make up for the sorry state of access to justice in New Brunswick, with its deplorably low rates of legal aid and income assistance."
Media Event: 27 February 2020, Fredericton Justice Building (following 9:30 court hearing)
Contacts: Robert MacKay (506-961-7182), Dan Weston (506-440-4567 / 506-474-3476)
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