Thread by @DavidAnber

Randy Hillier's motion for a change of venue was dismissed today by Justice Kevin Phillips of the Superior Court of Justice. Justice Phillips dismissed the motion "summarily" which means he didn't permit the parties to even have a hearing. Respectfully, he got it wrong. 🪡🧵

Firstly, I'll say that I am not going to lay out all of my criticism for this decision. Judges cannot respond to criticism and so public criticism is not the best way to address a judicial decision. I will, however, make some comments about the worst aspects of his decision.

Summary dismissal is a drastic result. In a situation like this, it can only be issued where there is no chance of success of the motion. To this, Justice Phillips likened Mr. Hillier's motion to the motion brought by James Bauder and Pat King.

The Bauder/King motions dealt almost exclusively with general claims of media bias towards the #FreedomConvoy. Justice Phillips' point is that: "the issue of change of venue in cases of accused persons facing charges arising out of the “Freedom Convoy” has [already] been decided.

In @randyhillier's case, our argument went well beyond the argument of Mr. Bauder and was particularized to Mr. Hillier specifically. I note that in the Bauder decision, the judge there said:

"There was not a great deal of media coverage focused on Mr. Bauder. [...] I seriously doubt that Mr. Bauder is well known to Ottawa residents. The adverse coverage in the media that Mr. Bauder complains of is directed at the Freedom Convoy, not at Mr. Bauder specifically.

In our case, we supplied the judge with over 100 examples of local members of the community specifically demonizing Mr. Hillier, particularly in relation to the conduct for which the Crown now seeks to prosecute Mr. Hillier.

Furthermore, it was not only the breadth of our argument which went beyond the scope of cases coming before ours but also the depth; our evidentiary record showed demonization of the Freedom Convoy at the institutional level including this tweet:

https://twitter.com/ottawacity/status/1506668351074062340?s=20

We also referenced the creation of the @ottpeoplescomm using taxpayer money.

For all of these reasons, it is beyond dispute that Mr. Hillier was entitled to a fair hearing over whether or not his venue should be changed. Justice Phillips denied that hearing from even proceeding. However the wrongness of his decision goes further.

Justice Phillips rendered his decision - denying a hearing - without hearing from the parties on whether or not summary dismissal was appropriate. This is itself a clear and unambiguous legal error (According to Ontario's highest Court):

"The trial management authority to dismiss Charter motions summarily will not be exercised fairly if this authority is used without first permitting submissions from the accused as to whether summary dismissal is warranted"

Lastly, possibly the most ironic part of Justice Phillps' comments today was that he said "Twitter is not real life" - apparently dismissing the value of the hundreds of tweets supplied as evidence.

The irony, of course, is that the Crown is prosecuting Mr. Hillier because, according to the Crown, his Tweets have consequences which are criminal. It is in this same light that we would have argued that widespread opinions on Twitter also have consequences to trial fairness.