AN EROSION OF RIGHTS

JUSTICE Minister Dave Chomiak essentially served notice in Tuesday's
throne speech that provincial legislation that was supposed to hit
organized crime in the pocketbook has been something of a bust. Police
refused to enforce the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act. Rather than
scrap his law, Mr. Chomiak intends to put public servants in charge of
it.

Police should enforce law that is underpinned by rules of due process,
not chase suspected bikers with legislation that skirts the rigours of
the Criminal Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The
forfeiture act requires no evidence that a crime has been committed in
order to seize assets, just proof that the individual belongs to a
gang. The biker then has to prove in a civil proceeding he has not
amassed his wealth from crime. Reverse onus is offensive to the rule
of law because it assumes the suspect is guilty. Even with the lower
burden of proof, the law has never been used. Police are too busy
chasing real crimes.

The throne speech gave notice the government will take care of this
problem by putting an internal team in the Justice Department in
charge of investigations. This has been done in other provinces; the
law in Ontario has triggered a Charter challenge. Manitoba already
employs the civil investigative process to shut down drug dens and
prostitution houses under the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods
Act. That legislation, which threatens landlords with the padlocking
of doors, has closed hundreds of such operations, or rather chased
them out of a specific neighbourhood and into others. Dealers can
simply move to a new house, something good police work and a strong
criminal charge might prevent.

The forfeiture act was intended to undercut organized crime by taking
away the houses, income and other property of bikers in order to prove
that crime doesn't pay. How public servants' evidence of assets will
be collected has yet to be described. It is not the kind of thing
easily done by surreptitious surveillance by bureaucrats armed with a
video camera, as under the safe neighbourhoods act. The justice
minister is hoping his campaign will be aided by a bid to get the
federal government to outlaw specified street and biker gangs as
illegal organizations, thus making the prosecutor's job easier. Gang
members would become accused criminals for who they associate with,
rather than for what they are convicted of doing.

Manitoba justice officials report that other jurisdictions are
developing a fondness for legislation like the safe neighbourhoods
act, and little wonder since it disposes of the protection of due
process and fundamental rights, such as the right to be presumed
innocent. That judicial pillar is slowly becoming a romantic artifact
in this province. Manitobans should worry where the erosion of
fundamental rights will stop.