A shortie but goodie today.
There has been a telling and unexpected development on the Kanadian Kommissars' Tribunal front regarding the Zundelsite trial: One of the three Tribunal members, Professor Harish C. Jain, has suddenly resigned. (!) :)
The official reason given is that there are scheduling and prior time commitment conflicts, and that Tribunal member Jain thus felt he could not continue to serve in good conscience because this website ownership trial will go well into 1999. He stated he could only spare two days here and there for Tribunal hearings.
Tsk. Tsk.
What might have been the real and true reasons for Professor Jain's resignation? We don't know. Not yet. Give it time.
Anyone who values his professional reputation can't be happy to be part of such a legal travesty that promises to unearth not just molehills but mountain chains of negative publicity for an already exceedingly unpopular government institution that throws away taxpayers money with six fists and causes so much evidence of human wrongs to land in public records. Even the mainstream media has come out with blistering attacks against the predatory, shameless so-called "Human Rights" industry - and much more is to come.
This has not been lost on a number of cagey politicians who, up to now, expected reputations to be enhanced and careers to be streamlined after licking the toes of their handlers and sucking up to the powerful and well-connected who have a stake in yet another legal lynching party where rules of evidence are trashed and truth is no defense.
Professor Jain is of Indian background, and people who watched his face during the expert witness testimony and cross-examination of Professor Dr. Alexander Jacobs, who testified for the defense, could see that he didn't like it one bit how his fellow Indian was treated - with open dislike, disdain, mockery, contempt and out-and-out derision.
Might we have ethnic fall-out here? Inquiring minds want to know - and will, no doubt, one merry day find out.
With the hearings scheduled to start next Monday, this leaves only two Tribunal members, which is apparently at odds with the CHRC statutes - it has to be an odd number so as to avoid a draw or "hung jury", once the end of this circus is in sight.
To get an odd number out of the number two, one additional member would have to withdraw or resign. That would leave one odd member, no pun intended here.
Could that be Mr. Pensa who seems to be visibly upset at what the legal Zundel team of two has come up with against the dozen or so lawyers of the nation's biggest law firms and private interests' political agendas?
Should Mr. Pensa withdraw, that would leave Reva Devins - she who already has a judicial review for apprehension of bias lodged against her and waiting ominously in the wings. As bears repeating, Devins was part of the Ontario Human Rights Commission as a duly sworn commissioner when that outfit relieved itself of its gloating in a press release dripping with poison at the Zundel conviction in 1988.
That this conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1992 apparently dropped into the memory hole for this Harvard-trained attorney when she agreed to serve on the current Zundel Tribunal.
I said to Ernst, when he informed me of the latest yesterday, that if the Tribunal were smart and politically discerning rather than hell-bent on grabbing control of the Internet, no matter what the fall-out, they would take this resignation as a gift from God, stop the proceedings and wait for the judicial reviews dealing with their jurisdictional and legislative authority.
Ernst said it wouldn't happen - these folks are like dogs with a bone. Ernst feels that, at most, Ms. Devins might withdraw, to get back to an odd number of "judges", which would be Mr. Pensa.
So we will see. I don't know about you, but there is a tiny glow in the depths of my heart that maybe, just maybe, there's going to be one more hiatus in the ever-more-transparently politically loaded Zundelsite struggle about Freedom of Speech on the Net.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"How about Jewish Recognition software? Install it on your computer and it will highlight or "extra bold" any time a Jewish name appears on your Browser.
"(Or) your computer could beep anytime a Jewish name is mentioned on TV. Could be a real eye opener."
(Letter to the Zundelsite -apparently in response to the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish censorship outfits who have recently released so-called "hate sites" or "hate material" filtering software. )