Sunday, January 25, 2009

Warman v. the Fourniers: The "John Doe" hearing

This past Thursday (January 22) saw a continuation of the Warman libel suit against Mark and Connie Fournier and Free Dominion. This particular hearing dealt with the identities of the,“John Does” (though at least one is not such a John Doe any longer) who are also named in the suit. The Fourniers, through their attorney Barbara “Babs” Kulaszka, were presenting arguments as to why they shouldn’t have to comply with their legal obligations under the Ontario Superior Court’s rules of procedure which states that they are required to disclose all information about the John Does. It should suffice to know that the arguments offered so far seem less than compelling, at least to us.

Our favourite part of the hearing is Babs Kulaszka’s argument that the Fourniers can’t release the email addresses of the users of FreeDom because if they were to disclose the email addresses of the John Does, then someone would then be able to track them down.



Yes, you’re right Babs. And your point is……? Let us help you Babs. That IS the point.

A close second argument made by Babs is that the Fourniers could not possibly be able to disclose the identities of the John Does is because the FreeDom website clock doesn’t work as evidenced by the posting of a FreeDom member going by the user name, “right-wing nut.”

Yes, that’s correct. The user name Babs pulled out to make her case is, “right-wing nut.”

The hearing itself legally was uneventful. The judge has reserved his decision so time will tell if Babs’ arguments will carry any weight. However, of some significant interest, at least for us, is who attended the hearing.

Not long after the hearing began, Paul Fromm and an as yet unidentified woman walked in and sat in front of the Fourniers. At the lunch break, Fromm, the unidentified woman and the Fourniers greeted each other like old friends. Fromm and the unidentified woman ended up staying the entire day at the hearing.

So, the Founiers have employed as their attorney a woman who produced two books that were published by Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel’sSamisdat Publishers” and "pals around" with people like Paul Fromm and Marc Lemire (since we know the Fourniers are fans, that's our little shoutout to Sarah Palin's contribution to political discourse).

Not that we’re implying that the Fourniers share the same opinion of Jews and Israel that Fromm, Lemire and Zündel hold but wow, talk about the company you keep.

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