Saturday, July 25, 2009
N.V.G. finds the Attorney-General responsible for disclosure of Executive Council e-mails
North Van's Grumps sent this information as a comment. It's important. It's posted here so readers can't miss it. N.V.G. says:
It looks like the "guy" who will be on the hook if the Executive council emails are not turned over to the courts, immediately, might just be the Former Attorney General, or the Current one.
Read about it HERE ...
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/fmb/manuals/CPM/12_Info_Mgmt_and_Info_Tech.htm#1233iv
After all the whole of this pre-trial antics for the defense team for Basi, Virk, Basi has been about disclosure.
d) Disclosure Requirements for Legal Proceedings
1. Ministries must list all relevant records in their custody or control under the Attorney General's discovery of documents.
2. Government records destruction schedules must be suspended during court orders for Demand of Discovery.
3. Records disposition must be suspended during legally mandated reviews (e.g., litigation, document discovery, and commissions of inquiry.)
... and HERE.
"Any content created or transmitted using government equipment or retained within the government network will be managed as a government record. There is no expectation of personal privacy related to the use of government information technology resources except for specific privileged communications (i.e., Cabinet, solicitor/client, and union representative communications)"
Therefore the disclosure process has been stalled because of at least two specific priviliged communications eg. Cabinet and solicitor/client which is the same as Cabinet and the Lawyer who represents the Executive council at the BC Rail pre-trial hearings.
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/ocg/fmb/manuals/CPM/12_Info_Mgmt_and_Info_Tech.htm#1231
... and then N.V.G. came back again with this:
I was doing a bit more in depth look at how the government stores our data and I just had a look at the date stamp on the file, on the page actually, ..... July 15, 2009!
Go HERE to see that.
http://www.cio.gov.bc.ca/legislation/policy/rim_manual/pol5_06_07.pdf Last revision: 2009/07/15
I wonder if there's an older copy, one that would say have allowed the government to have a broader discretion ......interpretation, of the Document Disposal Act before the lawyers for the defense team made their pitch to the press on where the heck has the Executive emails gone to?
And HERE. And especially HERE.
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From: BCRail Sale case is BC's biggest political scandal
By Gabriel Yiu
The Straight - July 25, 2009
... The Core Policy and Procedures Manual (Section 12.3.3) clearly states that “Government records destruction schedules must be suspended during court orders for Demand of Discovery” and that “Records disposition must be suspended during legally mandated reviews.”
The government’s electronic mail records management policy (Schedule 102903) states that e-mails “required for ongoing legal, fiscal, audit, administrative or operational purposes” must be transferred “to a storage medium suitable for retention for seven years".
The Executive Records Policy (Schedule 102906) requires the premier, cabinet ministers, deputy ministers, and assistant deputy ministers to retain documents that have “legal” or “evidentiary” value.
The executive records policy (Schedule 102906) also requires executive records, including e-mails and voicemails, to be retained for a minimum of 10 years.
Therefore, it's incomprehensible that the B.C. Liberal government only keeps e-mails of the premier and his cabinet for a mere 13 months.
It also raises a disturbing question: whether someone high up in the B.C. Liberal government deliberately destroyed these e-mails to hide the truth concerning corruption in the B.C. Rail sale ...
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That would be the same Attorney-General, of course, who would not comment because the matter is before the courts.
After, before, whichever huh?
No wonder Wally looked relieved when he lost....
Not that that will keep the court, or the media, from glossing over them, or in the court's case making rules that render them "not relevant".
And again, there remains the larger issue of the OTHER charges that need to be laid; not in relation to the OminTRAX bribe, and not in relation only to the emails. But to the proceedings which engendered them.
Is there anyone in the RCMP, or in the Crown prosecution or A-G offices, or at the higher level of the federal government, or potentially in international tribunals, who will have the balls/decency to investigate and file these charges??
The political fortunes and careers of others have been ruined by false charges - Glen Clark and Ralph Goodale come to mind - but the coating of teflon around the BC Liberals does not bode well for any of this, i.e. the pressing need for the REAL charges yet to be laid, and which should have been laid a long time ago. Why did the RCMP exempt elected officials from investigation? (well, other than Gary Collins?). And why have the private corporate parties to the illegal transactions (OmniTRAX and, fairly obviously, CN) also been exempted?
We already know the answer, but that answer just isn't good enough is it? Or rather, the answer poses a further string of questions.....
Will this country ever be a real democracy, or will it remain a shoddy post-colonial plutocracy forever?
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