Steyn Follies - Act IV - Dead Sock Walking
Normally over the two hour lunch break in a trial both sides are reviewing the evidence of the morning and preparing for the afternoon. Today I rather suspect that the Macleans legal team is having a couple of martinis and wondering aloud if any evidence was produced in the morning and what could possibly come up in the afternoon. This particular Hearing has come completely unmoored. The Tribunal, by allowing vast swathes of immaterial and irrelevant evidence in has made it effectively impossible to anticipate what Faisal Joseph will pull out of the air next.
Which creates a bit of a problem for the talking Sock on the stand. At some point, and I hope soon because this has just become silly, he is going to be subject to cross-examination. Normally, cross examination is rather sharply circumscribed by quaint notions of materiality, facts in evidence and relevance. However, the ‘roos have tossed these protections under the bus. So what can Faisal Joseph raise as objections to questions asked to the talking Sock?
Update 1: The ‘roos ruled the blogs admissible but, well, er, they didn’t actually have a copy of the document they were ruling on. Faisal Joseph is so on it. Five minutes away. Now that is what I call disclosure – so full that not even the party proffering the evidence actually has it. And now we are at cross examination.
[On a legal note, does this mean that the Evidence in Chief from the talking sock is now closed? It would at trial but I am wondering how many kicks at the cat Joseph gets and what other witnesses he has listed. ‘Cause if the evidence we’ve seen so far is, well, it, the ‘roos are going to be hard pressed to make a ruling of any sort.)
Update 2: Ezra reports first blood: “After obfuscating for a few rounds, Awan acknowledged that he never in fact offered a “mutually acceptable” article—that was simply an after-the-fact lie, a little bit of taqqiya that Awan et al. has told the press.
Awan admitted that he made no such offer of a mutually acceptable author. It was to be the CIC’s own choice.”
Ooops.
Update 2: Ezra again (Coyne is AWOL writing a column) “Now Porter is showing Awan various letters that Awan sent to Maclean’s. The fool was stupid enough to put his shakedown demands in writing.
And Porter is showing that Awan demanded that Maclean’s submit to the CIC’s choice. No “mutually acceptable” anything. That qualifier was added later by Awan the Liar, to appear more reasonable to the Gentile press.”
So Porter is going for the tried and true tactic of proving that the witness has lied. It is a good gambit (like I’m surprised) and it has the virtue of introducing the “shakedown” of Macleans without having to call evidence. This is what you get for $750 and hour.
Update 3: Awan is already saying he can’t remember his own words and Ezra detects the possibility of his bursting into tears...which would be a fine day for Islamic manhood. We’re ten minutes in. This is not going to be pretty – fun – but not pretty
Update 4: The Dead Sock is now having to read back his shakedown letters to Rogers. Ezra is recommending crying. And, so far, not a word from the Mohammadan legal titan Faisal Joseph – the kids on his own.
Update 5: Porter is hitting the Dead Sock with the whole “mutually acceptable writer” lie. Whack. I suspect the theory is that if Porter can have the Dead Sock contradict his prior statements enough times it will be possible to argue to the ‘roos that the Dead Sock is a liar and none of his evidence should be believed. A great tactic in Court, before the ‘roos? Who knows.
Sidebar: Apparently the ‘roos have informed counsel that they are having trouble with the audio system. No audio system no transcript, no transcript no appeal (or, rather, a much more difficult appeal).
Update 6: Shorter Ezra: “Khurrum Awan went in demanding cash and editorial control. Then he realized that doesn’t look good in a liberal democracy like Canada. So he edited the truth. He amended what he said. He lied.
And lied and lied and lied.
And kept lying.”
And Porter is going to walk the little bugger to each one of his messes and rub his nose in it. “Bad Sock, Bad, bad, Sock”
Update 7: Beauty! “What a gorgeous new lie young Khurrum Awan has offered. He claims that his letter to the editor to the National Post (in response to my own article!) might have been edited by Jonathan Kay, to insert the lie that Porter has caught him in.”
Too perfect! A speculative smear with an extra helping of defamation. Keep digging young Sock!
Update 8: Document meet Sock...”It wasn’t me, the zhoos, or maybe aliens or Bushhitler” is not the line I would take under cross examination by Porter (or anyone else for that matter).
Update 9: I have no reason to believe that the Dead Sock is on drugs – or at least I didn’t, “Awan: “That particular statement is occuring in the context of a particular article… in what seems to be a military conquest, by a military ruler, in which she is discussing our educational system.. I just do not see how a Muslim ruler burning down a library seems to be perhaps what Ms. Amiel is saying is if we have multicult taught to our kids, and respect for Muslims… it will somehow result in having libraries burnt down…”
Thanks Ezra, now my head hurts too.
Update 10: Porter: “those are my questions” reports Ezra. If Porter really has just sat down asking all the questions he needed to destroy the Dead Sock’s credibility we have just seen a piece of really brilliant lawyering.
Less really is more in cross examination and what this will have done is a) surprised the Mohammedans, b) left nothing to re-examine on to try and rehabilitate the witness, c) provided all the evidence needed to prove the Dead Sock a liar. All in less than an hour and a half and all without lending any weight at all to the buckets of useless evidence introduced through the Dead Sock.
Now the Mohammedans will have to see if they can round up another witness. I doubt they saw this coming.
Elegant.
Update 11: I fear Mike Brock is not impressed with the Dead Sock or with his buddy the Lying Jackal.
Update 12: I want to take a moment to say how much I appreciate Ezra Levant taking the time to live blog this farce from inside the belly of the beast. With Coyne off writing his column (update: Coyne’s back I just missed him) Ezra is the only link the rest of the blogging world has into the ‘roos. If you have a few bucks go dump them in his tip jar! He still has law suits to defeat.
Update 12: An expert can only testify to matters arising in his area of expertise:
“JP: “it’s a basic, cardinal rule that an expert may only testify as to what his expertise in… you [the panel] do not need help in what this article means and says, and by inference what the ordinary reader will take from it.”
Roo MacNaughton: “we will have no difficulty with allowing the evidence.. on the basis of [FJ’s] description of the evidence” ezra
Lovely, Professor Rippen has not been qualified as an expert on Muslims…he’s an expert on the Koran and its interpretation. The ‘roos couldn’t care less.
Update 13: Rippin: “Islam is being seen as this entity which drives all aspects of Muslim life… that this is the primal instinct… this kind of identity of Islam with global ambition… is based on a false understanding of the Muslim doctrine”
“if one looks at analysis of what is popularly called Islamophobia… Islam is presented as an unchanging, single entity, which is characterized as that “other”, characterized as barbarism, sexism, etc.” ezra
So now, having said he wouldn’t, Mohammedan Joseph has asked Rippon to interpret the article in question. And, for good measure, Rippon has gone on to tell us what Islamophobia is. Again, an area in which he can claim no special expertise.
Update 14: However, unlike the Socks, it appears Prof. Rippon has actually read Steyn, “His critique is a critique of Euro-American society.”
Update 15: I like Rippon says Ezra. So far Rippon has not laid a finger on the Steyn piece. And this suggests something which is becoming clearer as this farce unfolds – the Mohammedan Socks and their lawyer really do not have a clue about what their own case is about or how to conduct it. Why have a Koranic scholar at all? I very much doubt the Mohammedan legal titan Faisal Joseph could tell you. I suspect that, they sort of thought they needed an expert or two and came up with Rippon as one of the very few Christian Islamic scholars available. (Ezra is wondering the same thing, “I’m starting to wonder: did FJ and the sock puppets take Rippin through their questions before today? Or was his appearance as slap-dash as the rest of their case, some of which was hatched just yesterday?”)
Update 16: Ezra is really nailing the ‘roos “What a joke this tribunal is—the Roos know Awan isn’t a complainant, but they let him testify as if he was, to let the anti-Semitic bigot, Mohammed Elmasry, off the hook for doing so. A surrogate witness. What a legal novelty. What a legal joke.”
The entire proceeding is a travesty. And, given the traffic to my site today – and what I hope is ten times that to Ezra’s and Andrew’s – it is a travesty which is beginning to really reach out to people. People who expect quasi-judicial entities to obey the law.
Update 17: Coyne reports, “Quoting from Rippin’s work to show that not all Muslims share his moderate, modern view of the religion. Answer: yes, there are many different strands of Islam, from very liberal to very conservative.”
Now Porter will not likely do this but he could have some real, if entirely irrelevant, fun doing a little Koranic cherry picking (and not just the 9 year old wife of Mohammad). Similarily he might do a walk through of the Koranic justifications of the spread of Islam by the sword and just how well that worked out for the peoples of non-Islamic nations invaded by the Mohammadens.
Update 18: Coyne goes on “Quotes from Rippin. “Bin Laden has opened up a rupture among Muslims,” between “the Saudi-exported Islam” and others. He describes how a great number of mosques have been opened by the Saudis around the world, complete with radical Wahhabi imams. Sorry — this is a witness for the complainants?”
Indeed.
Update 19 (It’s time for a Beer!): Last word to Ezra, “Rippin’s testimony was pointless in this hearing. It was legally irrelevant. But Faisal Joseph argued that it went to show inaccuracies of Mark Steyn’s article.
It didn’t do that. In fact, it proved that indeed there are radical Islamic sects that require total political submission to Islam.”
It is hard to believe that Mohammedan legal titan Faisal Joseph could have been clueless enough not to have read Rippon’s work. But apparently he didn’t. Ezra’s right that it is legally irrelevant but politically it is a sharp stick in the eye for the Socks and CIC.
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Well to start with, they could read some short excerpts from the speeches of Iman Younous and ask the sock whether he agrees with the sentiments expressed….
And a similar question regarding the (a)morality of considering all Isreali’s over age 18 as proper targets of terrorist ‘action’..That is, does the puppet agree with the puppet-master?...
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
“So what can Faisal Joseph raise as objections to questions asked to the talking Sock?”
Sometimes I wonder if you have really caught the vibe here, amigo. ‘Ve vill ask zee questions here!”
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Ezra said that he looked forward to any civil litigation with these guys, and that his legal discovery would be fairly described as “proctological”.
I now get what he means….
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I appreciate your blogging this Jay…I’m able to get Coyne at work, but not Levant, or anyone with a “blogspot” address.
Good coverage, keep it up!
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Be careful that your glee gets ahead of you as a case this poorly brought will not be resolved around a Charter issue and will not be the undoing of any human rights stautory power but will be lost on just frivolity – in the legal sense, not in the sense of you running around saying “heehee, haahaa – what a bunch of dopes!”
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
“Ezra is recommending crying”
I’m seeing storm clouds gathering around downtown Van from my office window.
[continues munching popcorn]
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I agree Alan – as the absurdity becomes more manifest the chances of getting to the SCC recede. And this is, in many ways, the best shot we have to kill the HRC speech provisions by reversing Taylor.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Jay It’s obvious someone must record the proceedings, if not so there is partial transcripts for the appeal, at least for posterity and to give future comedians endless source material on comic court routines.
Am I premature in suggesting HRC witch hunting will go down in history as the most damaging comedy of the lake 20th century. May I suggest the Proceedings and testimony were “Pythonesque” and as such classic comedy?
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
I am lovin this, I still think Macleans will be found guilty – the Tribunal chieftains don’t like being lectured to.
Chris Selley the dweeb moderating the comments could sure stand to grow a pair however.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Chris Selley the dweeb moderating the comments could sure stand to grow a pair however.
Writing in his own voice Chris is pretty forthright (see his blog, Tart Cider) – acting in the best interests of a multi-Billion dollar communications company… Let’s just say I suspect Chris is under some fairly strict instruction on what he allows and doesn’t allow.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
The whole thing sounds like a Giant Cluster Farce. A bunch of Keystone Kourt Kops trot out their Keystone Kase.
But the sad thing is, the idiocy of the whole thing has no bearing on the outcome. It’s like justice in the old Soviet Bloc:
Dog #1: I hear you’re fleeing the country. Why?
Dog #2: Haven’t you heard? They’re going to shoot all the wolves.
Dog #1: But you’re a dog, not a wolf.
Dog #2: How do you prove that after they’ve shot you?
That’s the state of justice in these Keystone Kases.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
guys, I’ve actually been through this HRC wringer before as a defendant.
i was working for a company, and was named, but later removed as i was just an employee.
but – my christ, what a joke it was. i’ve never seen anything like it.
the “complainant” was so coddled, and the “accused” so obviously guilty from the get-go – it was the creepiest thing i’ve ever been involved in.
so, it’s amusing as hell to follow this.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Nah Dcardno – he is in need of a pair. I know his blog.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Jay,
Have we entered the Twilight Zone completely yet or only partially?
If the skies were to clear here in Vancouver then I’m sure I could see a giant spaceship showering the Robson Square complex with a Kangaroo Court Fruit Loop Energizer Beam!
Robert W.
P.S. I wish I were kidding!
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Jonah Goldberg differentiates between Daddy Fascism (with the jackboots and marching around into the rest of the world); and Mommy Fascism, which envelopes us all in a huge embrace of kindly suffocation.
The Human Rights Commissions were always conceived of as a Mommy alternative to the Daddy legal system. The latter is all about abstractions and lateral thinking and rules, and punishment.
The Mommy Human Rights Commissions, on the other hand, know that the complainants are helpless in the fact of this cold hard patriarchal society, and need a cuddle and understanding, a place where their concerns and feelings will be heard and supported – and the evil forces that hurt them will be thoroughly spanked
! (and destroyed, of course.)
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Three Words.
I’m Loving It.
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I think that Monty Python will be calling their solicitors and putting in a claim for plagiarism…
Although it will be interesting to see what any non-conservatives have to say about it. Appears to be nothing by crickets, though, at least first hand.
Maybe Johnny Maudlin can show up some day?
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Jay,
To hear you and your posters prattle on about “real courts” and the “rule of law” you’d think A.V. Dicey still walked the earth (he died in 1922) and the modern administrative state never happened. Maybe you, Coyne and Ezra should get together for a field trip to the B.C. Securities Commission, which is also not a “real court”, also does not strictly adhere to the rules of evidence and , like the HRT, hires a mix of lawyer and non-lawyers rather than “trained judges”. (For the record, unlike jurisdictions like France and Japan, common law countries don’t train judges, unless you count the week-long course put on by the Canadian Judicial Council that is attended by the newly appointed members of the bench and is known universally and ironically as “Dumb Judges School”)
After that you can go to the BC Utilities Commission, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, the CRTC and Ontario Municipal Board and sneer that that they’re not “real courts” either. And why not cap it off with a trip to a Provincial Small Claims Court, which is a “real court” with a “trained judge” but doesn’t adhere to the “Rules of Evidence”.
Oh the fun you’ll have, lording your ignorance of the law over all those commissioners, member and other not-judges! Maybe if you’re lucky, Ezra will take you to sneer at blind people whose guide dogs aren’t registered.
In this case, Macleans is represented by two very good lawyers (arguably overkill, but it’s Ted’s money), as are the BCCLA and the CAJ. The complainant’s first witness crashed and burned and his expert just gave a sterling performance… for the respondents. And yet here and on Coyne’s blog, all the talk is of the appeal of a decision that hasn’t been rendered yet.
Why do I get the feeling that you all will be bummed—or indulging in your typical paranoid analyses—if this claim gets dismissed?
Speaking of real lawyers, does anyone have any evidence that Levant has ever set foot in a courtroom as counsel? Cause he talks a string of shite.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:30 pm
truewest, it is a great shame that A.V. Dicey is so little remembered.
The strict adherence to the Rules of Evidence is one thing, their complete abandonment another.
I would not be at all surprised to see the BCHRT dismiss as early as tomorrow. Which would be sad in the sense that the best chance of having Taylor reversed or narrowed lies in this case simply because Ted has the dough to go all the way to the SCC.
But I have to say it is rare to see such a lawyerly mismatch – do we have any evidence that Faisal Joseph has ever actually tried a case?
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Truewest:
Do any of those non-court courts you mention allow third parties like Richard Warman to fake an identity, create false evidence, complain about that evidence, then collect a reward for being damaged by that evidence?
No?
Didn’t think so.
As for overkill on Maclean’s part, if it went the other way and they hired a Faisal Joseph-type and lost in the first hour of the case, you’d no doubt blame Macleans for not taking the situation seriously.
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Jay,
I don’t know Joseph from a hole in the ground, but punch his name—or his first initial and last name—into CANLII and it’s pretty clear that he has both tried cases and run appeals. Ezra, however, appears in that public database only as a litigant. (Perhaps when he describes himself as a defamation lawyer, he means a lawyer who defames people or sues people when they defame him.)
To be fair, Joseph hasn’t got much of a case to run. Steyn’s ramblings don’t approach the the standard of “hate” as defined by Taylor and I don’t imagine Joseph’s partners at Lerners were too keen on his devoting a whole whack of time to a case that is so clearly a dog.
As for the Rules of Evidence (my capitals were facetious, how ‘bout yours) I think you’re making a lot of fuss about nothing. For one thing, the tribunal has hardly thrown the door wide open (or any wider than similar tribunals have done). For another, I’ve seen judges in the “ordinary courts” (as Dicey liked to call them) make stranger rulings and let it in even more marginal evidence. They did it circumstances where it was clear that the party who sought to lead the marginal evidence was going to lose in any event and was grasping at straws. They did it, I suspect, because they didn’t want to give the losing party any possible grounds for appeal. After all, why get in the way of a falling body?
And this body is surely falling. I don’t think its going to end tomorrow, but I think it unlikely that the complaint will succeed. And I don’t think it was going to the SCC in any case. Ted may have the dough, but Ted needs leave to get to the SCC and he needs to lose on appeal first. Since Taylor set the bar for “hate” very high and since appellate courts don’t tend to defer the HRTs, the chances of either of those things happening was, well, slim.
Dicey, by the way, is hardly forgotten. He’s mentioned briefly at the beginning of every law school course on administrative law. And then we move on, into the modern world.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:49 pm
James,
Since you’re content to answer your own question, I don’t feel the need to point out that the accusation you level is b.s. Which makes it consistent with all the other nonsense you’ve written on this subject.
My point regarding Macleans is not that the magaine shouldn’t hire a good lawyer, but that it didn’t need to hire two. And curiously, both of them defamation lawyers. Whatever was Ted thinking?
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:51 pm
After that you can go to the BC Utilities Commission, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, the CRTC…
tw – I don’t know about the others, but the regulatory bodies I have been involved with (BCUC, AEUB (or now, AUB), NEB, OEB) have all bee pretty particular about rules of evidence, qualifications of “experts” (including right of cross-examination), procedural fairness, and all the other “court-like” safeguards that seem to be missing in the BCHRT proceeding. For the very least, full disclosure is rigorously enforced, and evidence must be sworn, either personally or by affidavit for written submissions.
June 3rd, 2008 at 8:57 pm
How do you get a Bench appointment in BC? You apply for it. On March 11, I attended a session at UBC, where a panel of 6 BC judges, including Donald Brenner, CJ, Supreme Court and Hugh Stansfield, CJ, Provincial Court. Chief justices accept applications, and interview candidates that they deem satisfactory, viz their own criteria. The Administrators admitted that they didn’t read academic articles or case findings, as a basis for choice. Rather, choices are based on proferred shared “values” – like “collegiality” and “helpfulness” – which are surveyed during interview presentations. Read: judges are chosen based on their willingness to posit elite-status-defence over the rule-of-law.
If anyone from our pathologically lazy media subjected Bench appointments to scrutiny, they would learn that – under the Brenner, cum Oppal (ex BC appeals court) regime – the paramount consideration is: tacit expression of a willingness to refrain from applying natural justice, to facts placed before our paid fact-finders. Members of the Defence and small claims Tort Bar, are excluded from the Bench in favour of Crown attornies and prosecutors, administrative lawyers (with a government service preference), corporate and elite service attornies. Besides having to show a record of 10 years of steady practice, a wannabe judge must manifest: latent partiality and subjectivity. The value of purveyance of fiction to the private benefit of government and elite claimants and defendents, is the cardinal virtue of the BC Bench.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 pm
dcardno,
The utilities tribunals may have applied stricter rules of evidence – hardly surprising given that the have a highly specialized mission, deal with lawyers 99% of the time, hear from experts with very particular knowledge, and make decisions worth millions of dollars – but they’re no more a “real courts” staffed by “real judges” than the HRT. And if I recall correctly, the AEB had a nasty habit of hiring private detectives to spy on the peopled making submissions to it, something that no Human Rights Tribunal has indulged in, as far as I know.
On the other hand, human rights bodies are set up to deal with mostly small complaints, brought by lay people. That task would be frustrated if every litigant had to wrestle with rules governing hearsay, the qualification of expert witnesses and so on. On the upside, it’s far easier to have a dodgy human rights complaint dismissed summarily than it is to strike out a vexatious claim in ordinary courts.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Truewest: I wasn’t aware that I had written much on this subject at all. Perhaps, like most lawyers, counting isn’t your strong suit?
I do recognize my error in not allowing you to answer. That was rude and rather incorrect in debate. I’m to used to Dawg’s Fleas interrupting things like the brats they are.
Funny you should mention the Ontario Municipal Board, though (a dinosaur that deserves to be put down). According to the OMB itself:
“All evidence must be relevant to the issue and on a topic that the OMB has the authority to deal with. The OMB will stop a witness who strays from giving relevant evidence.”
Haven’t seen any of that in BC yet…
Oh, and this would ruin Warman’s day:
“...the OMB will not usually order one party to pay for another party’s expenses.”
June 4th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
tw – my point was that even “not real judges” can apply such elementary concepts as ‘relevance’ or ‘rules of evidence’ – somehow you seemed to imply that the HRC’s lax standards were rather the rule in “not real courts”
You are correct that utilities commissions deal with specialized areas – although not as specialized as ‘hate crimes’ – the point is that they bring in real expertise when they need it, and subject it to (sometimes painful) discovery and cross examination. True, they usually deal with lawyers – I’m sure you will be willing to point out the “not real lawyers” currently on their hind legs in front of the BCHRT. Utilities commissions deal in decisions worth millions of dollars – but small claims courts, although informal, and by definition seized of matters worth far lesser amount routinely afford protections that the various HRC/HRTs have never bothered with. Finally, just what do you think the cover and an unedited five or six pages in Macleans are worth? I’d be surprised if that isn’t the better part of a million – and well over, if the precedent is that anyone with a chip on their shoulder has the right to commander the magazine.