Judge Elizabeth Bennett forces Ottawa to foot "gay" store's legal bills to challenge its own policies.

Vancouver--B.C. judge Elizabeth Bennett has ordered the federal government to fund a constitutional challenge of the power of Canadian Customs to seize and censor imported material. A Supreme Court of Canada ruling, in 2000, known as Okanagan Indian Band, paved the way for a new area of litigation by individuals and groups that otherwise cannot shoulder the costs of constitutional trials. The order for the payment to a Vancouver "gay" bookstore, Little Sisters Book and Art Emporium, is the first application of this ruling which ends a decade-long round of litigation by Little Sisters, involving seizure by Canada Customs of books featuring "gay" sado-masochistic themes.

The B.C. Supreme Court flayed Canada Customs for following "arbitrary and inconsistent" seizure policies; rather than striking down the agency's power to seize and censor, however, the Court ordered Customs to clean up its act. All nine judges criticized Customs for years of "excessive and unnecessary" prejudice towards the "gay" and lesbian community, and for treating it as outCastS.

If Customs has not been correctly applying the legal test for obscenity, Judge Bennett said the issue transcends the interests of Little Sisters and touches all book importers. She said that the funding order will provide the bookstore with a realistic way of bringing forward a case which is in the public interest.

Comment

Here is another case of a judge ordering the federal government to develop new policies, this time on "gay" pornography. Canada Customs must submit the new rules to judges like herself who will then decide whether the new policies are sufficiently "gay" friendly.