Canadian Seal Hunt: 11 activists charged!

PUBLICATION:	The Guardian (Charlottetown)
DATE:	2007.09.04
SECTION:	The Province
PAGE:	A4
SOURCE:	CanWest News Service

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Prince Edouard Island (P.E.I.) court upholds convictions in longstanding seal hunt case

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 A longstanding P.E.I. court case involving 12 protesters who were charged after a confrontation with sealers has come to a close with the finding that certain seal hunt regulations are a reasonable limit on Charter rights.Canadian animal rights activist Paul Watson and 11 other seal hunt protesters were charged with not having observer permits and being too close to the hunt in 2005 off Prince Edward Island.

All of them were convicted – except Watson – and fined $1,000 at trial in January 2006.

At the P.E.I. Summary Conviction Appeal Court, the activists then appealed the convictions, and lost, and the Crown cross-appealed Watson’s acquittal, and won.

Last month, the P.E.I. Supreme Court heard the appeals from that decision, and upheld the convictions.

The case hinged on the right of sealers to engage in their livelihood versus the right of protesters to film the hunt.

The protesters said regulations that prohibit them from getting closer than a half nautical mile to the hunters limited their ability to properly document the event and infringed on their right to freedom of expression.

The Supreme Court of Appeal judges said the original trial judge erred in finding the regulations did not infringe the activists’ freedom of expression. But the judges also said the regulations are a reasonable limit on that right.

“Any harmful effects of limiting . . . the right of the citizen to express their opinions about the seal fishery in this manner are proportional to the beneficial effects of allowing the fishery to proceed in an orderly fashion,” the appeal court ruling stated.