Rancourt v. St. Lewis: Rancourt serves attorneys general with Notice of Constitutional Question

This (LINK) (PDF) is the Notice of Constitutional Question that was served to the attorneys general and to the respondent and filed at the Supreme Court of Canada, on October 7, 2015, in the application for leave to appeal, Court File Number 36653, in the case Rancourt v. St. Lewis.

The trial and appeal went very wrong and the attorney generals (of Ontario and Canada) need to intervene at the Supreme Court in order to protect the interests of Canadians and the integrity of the justice system.

Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in May 2014 had already indicated how wrong things could go in this case (LINK). She was more than right.

There are five constitutional questions being put to the Supreme Court:

i. Constitutionality of the common-law “Astley test”:
Is the common-law “Astley test” used in ordering permanent injunctions against unknown expression following findings of defamation constitutional and consistent with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and was the applicant’s right of freedom of expression thereby violated by the permanent injunction?

ii. Rights infringed or denied by selecting trial evidence in barring defences:
Under what conditions, if any, can a judge disregard evidence on the trial record because one party did not “call” or “introduce” it, in deciding whether to put defences to the jury, and were the applicant’s Charter rights of a fair trial and of freedom of expression thereby infringed or denied by the lower courts themselves?

iii. Freedom of expression infringed or denied by costs of defamation trial:
Under what conditions are costs of trial ordered against a defendant in a defamation action unconstitutional and incompatible with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves violate the applicant’s right of freedom of expression with costs?

iv. Constitutionality of the Canadian common law of judicial bias:
Is the Canadian common law test for reasonable apprehension of bias (judicial bias) unconstitutional by virtue of being a violation of Article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves thereby violate the applicant’s right to a fair trial?

v. French language Charter rights infringed or denied by the appellate court itself:
Did the appellate court itself violate the applicant’s equal-language Charter rights and privileges?

The Ontario Civil Liberties Association opposes the University of Ottawa's funding of the legal costs of the plaintiff/respondent: HERE-LINK.
A recent video-report about the case was published by Brave The World: HERE-LINK.
A blog-article history of the case is HERE-LINK.
All the court-filed documents in the case are HERE-LINK.