🚀 go-pugleaf

yu156589@yorku.ca (C. Peter Constantinidis) wrote:

>There is a way to try to change the laws or make them clearer without
>first getting charged.  All citizens as far as I know, have the
>ability to fund a consitutional/legal challenge against a specific law
>without being charged for it beforehand. 

Wrong.  The court will only deal with specific instances, not with
hypotheticals.  Declaratory relief - the outcome of Mr.
Constantinidis' proposed litigation- is unavailable for matters
involving the criminal law.  The only way is to actually have an
accused charged with the offense.  By the way, obscenity is well
defined judicially.

>This has been consistently the case with section 462.2 (related to so
>called 'drug paraphenalia' which at one point was broad enough to have
>a picture of a marijuana plant in the encyclopaedia illegal).  Anyways
>literature is now legal again, but 'paraphenlia' is not, except there
>is no definition of what paraphenalia really is.  So the method used
>by the Crown and police to harass people with it, is to charge someone
>with it's vague definition, seize stock (esp. if it's a store), let it
>run on for a long time in court, and THEN drop the charges.
>So now there are some (at least 2) constitutional challenges in
>progress by pro-hemp people. I can't remember if both resulted from
>being charged though.

For several years Alan Young, a professor of criminal law at Osgoode
Hall Law School has been trying to have s.462.2 of the Criminal Code
judicially repealed.  Most of his efforts have been directed at
finding the ideal defendant. 

Morton M. Goldmacher 
Barrister and Solicitor