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| Justice Lynn Smith |
The Vancouver Province printed an article by CP Press entitled: Governments ordered to cover $1 million of opposing laywers’ costs in right-to-die case.
It is bad enough that Smith rejected information from peer reviewed studies that proved that in other jurisdictions (Belgium) vulnerable patient groups are dying by euthanasia without an explicit request and these euthanasia deaths are "covered-up" by the physicians not submitting the euthanasia reports.
Now Smith orders the government to pay the expense of the case to overturn the law, a case that the federal government has argued that Smith had no right to overturn a law that was already upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada.
The article states:
The federal and provincial governments have been ordered to pay about $1 million in legal costs to the B.C. lawyers who won a constitutional challenge of Canada’s ban on doctor-assisted suicide.
The right-to-die case in B.C. Supreme Court included West Kelowna resident Gloria Taylor, who suffered from ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had planned to seek an assisted suicide before she died of an infection last month.
The lawyers for Taylor provided their time for free, but then asked the court to award special costs for their legal bills because of the significance of the case.
David Eby of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, which championed the case, told the court it was the most expensive piece of litigation the association had ever undertaken, and the costs were much higher than expected.
In a judgment released Friday, Justice Lynn Smith — who made the ruling in the assisted-suicide case in June — agreed that the lawyers who brought the challenge should be awarded special costs because of the significance of the legal action.
“The issues in this litigation are both complex and momentous,” Smith said. “They affect life and death, and the quality of life of people who are ill and dying. The resolution of these issues — indeed, whatever the outcome on final appeal — will affect many people and will also have an impact on the development of fundamental principles of Canadian law.”
“Many Canadians are affected by the legislation. The fact that Ms. Taylor was personally affected ... means that she had a personal interest; it does not mean that the issues were personal to her alone,” Smith said.
She ruled the federal government should pay 90 per cent of the legal bills and the provincial government 10 per cent.
The federal government is appealing the B.C. Supreme Court’s decision, which ruled it is unconstitutional to prevent the sick and dying from asking a doctor to help them end their lives.
Smith’s decision gave the government a year to revise legislation in order to allow people to seek a doctor-assisted suicide.
In court documents released last week outlining the appeal, the federal government said legalizing doctor-assisted suicide would demean the value of life and could lead vulnerable people to take drastic steps in moments of weakness.
The appeal is scheduled to be heard next March.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition (EPC) intervened in the BC case at the lower level and we are planning to intervene at the BC Court of Appeal.The Federal and Provincial government also needs to appeal this decision. Justice Lynn Smith appears to be wanting her name in the history books for doing everything possible to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.
Please contact Justice Minister Rob Nicholson asking him to appeal the $1 million dollar award to the BC Civil Liberties Association in the Carter v Canada case.
The Honourable Robert Douglas Nicholson
Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada
284 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8
Email: mcu@justice.gc.ca
This is a disgusting addition to the changing of the law regarding assisted suicide. Canadian taxpayers and the most vulnerable in society get severely harmed by the two rulings.
ReplyDeleteThis is the tip of the iceberg and we need to be vigilant. At a lecture on the Holocaust this evening the comment was made that as soon as we are uncomfortable with something that we don't think is quite right, we need to speak up and act. This is true of this situation.
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