EVEN JUDGES HAVE LIMITS WITH THE CLUELESS IN COURT

Some trials were more trying than others in Alberta courts in 2004.
Court of Queen's Bench Chief Justice Allan Wachowich says there's an
increasing sense of frustration among jurists confronted with civil
litigants or criminal defendants who seem determined to thwart justice
with bizarre tactics.

"We are obligated to be patient, kind, understanding and empathetic,
but also decisive," Wachowich said, calling efforts by judges to
assist the almost-always lawyerless people "a very delicate balancing
act."

Judges don't balk at guiding honestly inclined people who choose to
act as their own lawyer in any matter, said University of Alberta law
professor Sanjeev Anand.

In fact, "There's some argument that it may be more beneficial to go
unrepresented" in certain cases, Anand said.

Crown Prosecutor Robert Beck said it's accepted that a lawyerless
accused is going to get a lot of leeway from the bench, which a lawyer
would never be permitted.

"I know from personal experience that judges will go to great
lengths," Beck said.

But there's also a line at which they stop, said Wachowich.

"You show patience to a certain stage, then you don't. You have to
say, 'Look, you are talking nonsense.' "

Alberta judges have this year confronted what they've referred to in
various judgments as "gibberish," "rants" and "wild, speculative arguments."

Queen's Bench Justice Jack Watson dubbed one non-lawyer an "officious
buttinski" who presented to the court, "an inaccurate stitching
together of inapt words and phrases, underscored by miscreation of
historical legal landmarks."

Court, he wrote, is "not required to accept such gibberish."

The man presented himself as "a natural, spiritual-living man of
substance with unlimited capacity, a soul possessing free will"
somehow authorized to represent two people - themselves never seen nor
heard from - in a lawsuit.

There was never any evidence the man was asked by anyone to be
involved in the case, Watson noted, adding he had ignored more gentle
suggestions from other judges that he go away.

There was nothing gentle about Watson's direction: "I part company
with any suggestion that ('the officious buttinski') needs to be
treated in some compassionate manner."

Justice Sterling Sanderman was similarly faced with "a stream of
consciousness rant tying together a number of misguided notions" when
another "authorized agent" attempted to sue an insurance company.

Sanderman was shocked by yet another man who initially appeared to be
very much on the ball.

"It is baffling that one who so clearly states the standard of review
that must be met ... cannot recognize that he does not begin to
approach this standard," Sanderman wrote.

The generally gentle Justice was pushed even further over the edge by
a marijuana trafficker whose "representative" tried to stop charges on
the grounds that the weed was a religious sacrament.

Tiresomely, every reference made was an outdated and discredited
argument "doomed to failure," noted Sanderman, who still picked apart
each claim in detail.

Not content to leave bad enough alone, the defence also called a
single witness, the "Founding member of the Edmonton Grove of the
Church of the Reformed Druids."

Sanderman refused to call the witness "Doctor," as suggested: "To pay
him that honour ... would be insulting to all individuals who have
earned that status," the justice wrote.

The court did glean from the witness the claim that an error in the
Bible had left marijuana off a list of ingredients for anointing oil,
the recipe for which God gave Moses.

That claim, the justice found, was "as incredible as his claim to
possessing a legitimate PhD."

Somehow, it got even worse: The witness told Sanderman that marijuana
use was not actually required by the Reformed Druids, the key claim of
the hapless accused.

"This matter will go to trial," Sanderman ruled.