The anti-mask leader Mario Roy, who claims that the Quebec justice system is participating in a “child abduction network”, will be entitled to five weeks of trial, including at least three before a jury, to defend himself against charges of criminal harassment against a person associated with the justice system.
These five weeks of hearing, which were officially reserved for Wednesday by the Superior Court, are in addition to the 20 hearing days scheduled last week by the Court of Quebec, for a trial in which Mr. Roy will have to defend himself, with five other activists from the Les Farfadaas group, accused of mischief in connection with the blocking of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel last March.
Mr. Roy represents himself and claims to have created a case law allowing him to carry out citizen arrests, in particular against judicial personnel. He was arrested and jailed for four months last spring after allegedly breaking an order that banned him from mentioning the name of the bar lawyer who is filing contempt of court charges against him. He has since been released on condition.
For this harassment trial, he says he needs “minimum 10 days, possibly 15” hearing days to hear about twenty witnesses. He also demands to play the full audio recording of a “five-day trial” which confirms, according to him, that he has created “jurisprudence” in matters of citizen arrest. “There is an audio from the court which confirms my credibility,” he explained to judge Éliane Perreault on Wednesday.
“Mr. Roy, you will understand that the judge will not listen to another trial,” she warned him. There are rules that deal with all of this. ”
The Crown, for its part, provided for at most five days of trial, as well as a week of hearing to debate, in particular, a request to exclude large parts of the audio and video evidence deemed irrelevant. Mr. Roy insists, however, that all the recordings taken from Facebook, which he describes as “humorous videos”, be heard in full by the jury so that they understand the context of their statements.
Last March, Judge André Vincent, of the Superior Court, asserted, by declaring Mr. Roy guilty of three contempt of court, that his claim to have created a “case law on the power of citizen arrest” is based on on “eccentric or imagined theories in the mind of a person believing to know the principles of applicable law”.