STAKES HUGE FOR PUBLIC ON ANTI-GANG LAW

Legal Issue Of Gang Membership Needs To Be Aired

Citizens have the most to lose when a criminal court judge moves to
outlaw the printing, airing or Internet posting of all evidence
emerging from a juicy trial.

That's why we media messengers were relieved to hear that B.C. Supreme
Court Justice Anne MacKenzie has finally rescinded most of the gag
order she imposed eight months ago on an ongoing hearing involving
some of the muscle behind the mighty Hells Angels.

I say "most" because MacKenzie has said key evidence linked to a
Criminal Code provision dealing with whether the H.A. thugs -- on
trial for coke trafficking and related offences -- were members of a
criminal organization is still taboo.

What I can say is it concerns a gritty section of the code that has
the potential to bring biker gangsters to their knees, in that it
metes out a double sentence to those convicted of doing crimes for the
benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a lawless gang.

The clause is a formidable weapon for law-enforcers striving to topple
some of the 950 organized crime groups said to be operating in Canada,
a hike of nearly 20 per cent over 2006. At least 124 of these gangs
are alive and well in B.C.

But while the CC section appears tough -- it carries a consecutive
sentence of up to 14 years -- the jury is still out as to whether it
can actually deliver.

Crown prosecutors must first establish, to the comfort of the court,
that an accused is a member of a specific gang or club and then
whether the group fits the legal definition of a criminal
organization, which involves three or more people whose main activity
is to commit crime for the gain of the group.

It's not easy to prove. In fact, judgments flowing from the few cases
that have so far caught the attention of the courts and the public
have been all over the map.

A Superior Court judge ruled in July 2005 that an Ontario chapter of
the Hells Angels was an identifiable criminal group.

All well and good, but a B.C. judge more recently concluded that
prosecutors in B.C. and other provinces will still have to provide
evidence on a case-by-case basis -- as they intend to do in the
previously mentioned Vancouver Hells Angels trial -- that the
"criminal" label applies to each individual Angels' club in Canada.

But later in 2005, a B.C. Supreme Court judge struck down as
unconstitutional part of the same section that relates to how a person
is deemed to be one of some who constitute a criminal
organization.

The judge said the section was too vague in that it failed to detail
who would be considered a member of a gang and who would not.

Meanwhile, Manitoba's judges haven't accepted even one Crown attempt
to convict an accused of being part of a criminal gang.

Whereas a judge in Montreal decided last year that a small local
street gang was a criminal group.

Until an appellate court or Canada's top court clarifies what
constitutes a criminal organization -- and more pointedly, whether the
Hells Angels or their various chapters fit the definition -- it
remains an uncertainty with huge stakes.

That's why the veil of secrecy must be removed as quickly as possible
to enable us to report fully on a public issue that has serious
implications for the war on organized crime.