Tuesday, April 17, 2007

 

Does B.C. have an embedded media?

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17 April 2007. Today's Supreme Court Criminal List doesn't mention Basi, Virk, or Basi. But the first entry on the listing is their Case Number 23299-3. The name isgiven only as HMTQ vs LIMITED ACCESS. But the "Main Charges / Applications certainly sound familiar. And they cover 6 pages: Disclosure applications, Special Prosecutor to provide call logs, disclosure of intercepted transcripts, and so on.

Special note: Start time is 2:00 PM. (Not the usual 9:00 AM start.)

Question: how did CanWest know the date in advance? And apart from one throw-away comment in a 14 April article about the trial beginning "next Tuesday", how come CanWest said nothing about a change of venue? Everyone else reported what they had seen and heard direct from Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett in court on Monday 10 April: The trial begins on 18 April 2007 with 120 days booked.

More later ... but this start-up demonstrates a weird evasiveness on the part of Big Media. Bring on Bill Tieleman and all the Citizen Journalists. - BC Mary.
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AND HERE'S BILL TIELEMAN to help us out:

Mary - Bill Tieleman here - sorry, I've been in a seminar most of the day. The only hearing I know of this afternoon is for media lawyers to discuss with the defence and special prosecutors about how to access court documents during the trial.Justice Elizabeth Bennett raised this at the last pre-trial hearing and also previously, saying she wanted maximum access and transparency.I did not report it at the time but was aware of it. Hopefully there will be full openness on these important documents but the trial definitely starts on Wednesday April 18 not today.

Posted by Bill Tieleman to The Legislature Raids April 17, 2007 2:25 PM
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Comments:
If the judge is too rule on all the documents in assorted rooms and filing cabinets, today would be crunch day. So a quick check again tommorow will let us know if things are about to start as a court ceas not a review of papers. There may have well been others days" sorting the stuff out and since some might be sort of sensitive, such a cell phone calls accidentaly trapped. I figure that information might well be limited and the person making the decision , the Judge. dl
 
dl, that's pretty much how I'm seeing it, too ... but there's an awful lot of stuff to get through between 2:00 and 4:00 PM today ... can't see this getting the decks cleared for tomorrow. Can you?
 
Mary - Bill Tieleman here - sorry, I've been in a seminar most of the day.

The only hearing I know of this afternoon is for media lawyers to discuss with the defence and special prosecutors about how to access court documents during the trial.

Justice Elizabeth Bennett raised this a the last pre-trial hearing and also previously, saying she wanted maximum access and transparency.

I did not report it at the time but was aware of it. Hopefully there will be full openness on these important documents but the trial definitely starts on Wednesday April 18, not today.
 
Pardon me, but wouldn't maximum access and transparency preclude having private tete-a-tetes avec Madame Bennett and a media that has for the most part not given a damn about much of this for years while excluding Robin Mathews and other members of the public who've been there from the beginning - in the public interest?

Why not just hold the whole damn thing behind locked doors and let Lucinda Chodan decide when it's NEWS?
‘Please Ma’am, Can we have some MORE?’

Disgusting! I think I'm beginning to understand why Robin is steamed a lot of the time. He's been putting up with this 'star chamber' BS for most of his adult life.
 
I completely agree with the Anon-O-Mouse directly above except, of course, for the 'can we have some more?' query given the fact that we haven't actually had any yet).
 
A Chanell 12 TV Victoria reporter Sashi Kuel( sp) was in court today so it may have just been lawyers talking but she is no lawyer. They are getting down to business tommorrow according to the reporter.Check 12.s late news and itmay repeat dl
 
"Today's Supreme Court Criminal List doesn't mention Basi, Virk, or Basi. But the first entry on the listing is their Case Number 23299-3. The name isgiven only as HMTQ vs LIMITED ACCESS."


My question is: Who makes the final decision as to "how" the entries on The Supreme Court Criminal List will appear.... or be worded? Under whose "authority" does this fall?
 
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