Wayne Thibodeau, President Press Gallery of PEI and prosecutor photo: Guardian

The Press Gallery of PEI is supposed to contain our finest journalists who reporting the news to protect democracy. They are really just thugs.

Editor – this story is a more narrative version of the press release that follows. You will note minor differences. In the press release the wording is “unprofessional”. Here we call a spade a spade – they were “thugs”. Some editing to shorten that length has occurred for the press release.

Last night’s expulsion of satirist and blogger Stephen Pate was a travesty of justice from unprofessional journalists.

Not even a show trial in communist China could have approached the lack of due process and fairness at the PEI Press Gallery public meeting to excommunicate its only blogger journalist. Even in communist Russia they gave people lawyers. This was like a banana republic where the government is talking to the judge throughout the trial to make sure they get a conviction.

Can you imagine a trial with a parking ticket that the number of charges and scope widens from the moment the judge opens the court? That was how Wayne Thibodeau, senior political reporter for the Charlottetown Guardian, conducted the meeting.

In a fair court system, both sides spend months even years getting the charges straight, discovering evidence with due care, examining witnesses so that no injustice occurs.

“A kangaroo court or kangaroo trial, sometimes likened to a drumhead court-martial, refers to a sham legal proceeding or court. The colloquial phrase “kangaroo court” is used to describe judicial proceedings that deny due process rights in the name of expediency.

“Such rights include the right to summon witnesses, the right of cross-examination, the right not to incriminate oneself, the right not to be tried on secret evidence, the right to control one’s own defense, the right to exclude evidence that is improperly obtained, irrelevant or inherently inadmissible, e.g., hearsay, the right to exclude judges or jurors on the grounds of partiality or conflict of interest, and the right of appeal.

“The outcome of a trial by “kangaroo court” is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of providing a conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or by allowing no defense at all.” Wikipedia

Secret societies like the Press Gallery of PEI don’t have to follow court procedures. They would follow Roberts Rules of Order. Thibodeau wanted to gain his motion of expulsion at all costs last night and could hardly slow down to follow procedure.

Any society can expel a member without cause and without a trial.

72. The Right of a Deliberative Assembly to Punish its Members. A deliberative assembly has the inherent right to make and enforce its own laws and punish an offender, the extreme penalty, however, being expulsion from its own body. When expelled, if the assembly is a permanent society, it has the right, for its own protection, to give public notice that the person has ceased to be a member of that society. Roberts Rules of Order

Organizations rarely do that since it seems dictatorial. They have to be careful not to slander the person they want to eject and the no trial method is the safest legally. However, should they decide to proceed to a trial, it is usually in closed session to avoid scandal, slander etc. The purpose to make sure the group agrees on who its members are not punish people. Attempts to punish members in public result in lawsuits against the group.

75. Trial of Members of Societies. Every deliberative assembly, having the right to purify its own body, must therefore have the right to investigate the character of its members. It can require any of them to testify in the case, under pain of expulsion if they refuse. quotes are from Roberts Rules of Order

Once a trial is decided the rules are simple
1. Send the person a notice of the meeting and the charge against them “The clerk should send the accused a written notice to appear before the society at the time appointed, and should at the same time furnish him with a copy of the charges.”

The complaint according to the public notice give was “The executive has received several complaints about a news release dated Sept. 29, 2009 issued by yourself and NJN Network, among other concerns. The news release is purported to be from the Prince Edward Island government but in an email dated Oct. 9, 2009, you have confirmed that indeed you were the author of that news release.”

The charge is essentially that I created a fraudulent press release. I prepared myself for that. The actually charges – and there were two pages of handwritten bullets – were so broad and numerous, the process was immediately prejudicial to a fair hearing.

I asked Thibodeau to restrict himself to the original charge, which one would expect according to law and Roberts. He refused.

Pat Martel objected to widening the issues to include big picture issues like “should bloggers be allowed in the Press Gallery.”

Thibodeau refused. The reason is simple. In my opinion, the whole thing was a show trial, a kangaroo court with trumped up charges and a foregone conclusion from the Speaker’s office. The result was known before we began – I was to be expelled.

I struggled to deal with all of those new issues, despite explaining my current pain and fatigue from post polio – not fibromyalgia as the Guardian reported. I said the fatigue was “like” fibromyalgia but that is another story.

The whole thing should have stopped dead in its tracks but Thibodeau is not a lawyer, he acted undemocratically.

Next – the charge

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