(Ottawa) Tamara Lich, one of the most prominent organizers of the Ottawa motorcade that blocked downtown for more than three weeks, says the judge who denied her bail was biased against his case and asked the court to review the decision.
Posted at 5:33 p.m.
Ms Lich was arrested on February 17 and charged with counseling another person to commit mischief, the day before police moved to disperse people in downtown Ottawa using powers under of the Federal Emergency Measures Act.
Ontario Court of Justice Judge Julie Bourgeois denied Ms. Lich’s bail on Feb. 22, after ruling that the convoy organizer posed a risk of reoffending. In her ruling at the time, Justice Bourgeois said she found Ms. Lich to be willful and dishonest in her responses to the court, and that her detention was “necessary for the protection and safety of the public.”
In court on Wednesday, Ms. Lich’s lawyer filed a statement on her behalf that if she had known that Ms. Bourgeois was a Liberal candidate in the 2011 federal election, she would have asked the judge to recuse herself from the case.
“If I had had this information beforehand, I would have felt uncomfortable with the situation,” Ms Lich told the court on Wednesday.
She spent the majority of the hearing sitting straight in the dock, her hands clasped in her lap, her blonde hair in a high bun and a mask over her face.
While protests in downtown Ottawa were primarily aimed at COVID-19 restrictions and vaccination requirements, protesters also targeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party with vulgar flags and slogans. .
Ms Lich’s lawyer, Diane Magas, also argued that Judge Bourgeois repeatedly referred to the impact of the protest on “our community” in her decision to keep Ms Lich in jail.
“If a judge feels there is an impact on her community, in my opinion, she should not sit. There should be a judge from out of town,” Magas told the court.
Fellow protest organizer Chris Barber, who traveled in convoy from Alberta to Ottawa with Ms Lich, was arrested the same day as her and charged with mischief, counseling another person to commit mischief , disobeying a court order and obstructing the police.
He was released on bail on February 18 by the same judge who originally ordered Ms Lich to remain in custody.
Wednesday’s bail review hearing was slightly delayed as hundreds of people tried to tune into the videoconference showing the proceedings and flooded the online forum with messages of support.
Other key figures in the Ottawa protest, Pat King and Daniel Bulford, have been denied bail on charges related to their role in the protests due to the risk of them reoffending.