St. Lewis v. Rancourt defamation case: Rancourt files Application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada

Denis Rancourt at the Supreme Court entrance to the Registry, on September 28, 2015

The defendant, then appellant, now applicant Denis Rancourt today served and filed an Application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada requesting an appeal from the recent judgment of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in the St. Lewis v. Rancourt defamation case.

The full 343-page Application is publicly posted HERE-LINK, or HERE-PDF.

A summary of the Application is:

SUMMARY -- The appellate court showed animus toward the applicant. ●The appellate court made a new repressive law that allows permanent gag orders against persons with limited financial means. ●The appellate court approved the trial judge’s decision to disregard all evidence in the applicant’s favour because it was introduced by the other side. ●The appellate court ignored the applicant’s constitutional ground against the large costs for trial. ●The appellate court decided that the trial judge’s financial and emotional ties with the other side did not give an appearance of bias, and failed to consider whether the trial judge’s in-court statements show bias. ●This occurred in an appeal where the applicant could not complete his submissions due to being interrupted many times because he chose to speak in French.

The Application raises the following questions of national importance:

(i)    Is the common-law “Astley test” used in ordering permanent injunctions against unknown expression following findings of defamation constitutional and consistent with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and was the applicant’s right of freedom of expression thereby violated by the permanent injunction?

(ii)    Under what conditions, if any, can a judge disregard evidence on the trial record because one party did not “call” or “introduce” it, in deciding whether to put defences to the jury, and were the applicant’s Charter rights of a fair trial and of freedom of expression thereby infringed or denied by the lower courts themselves?

(iii)    Under what conditions are costs of trial ordered against a defendant in a defamation action unconstitutional and incompatible with Canada’s obligations pursuant to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves violate the applicant’s right of freedom of expression with costs?

(iv)    Is the Canadian common law test for reasonable apprehension of bias (judicial bias) unconstitutional by virtue of being a violation of Article 14(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and did the lower courts themselves thereby violate the applicant’s right to a fair trial?

(v)    Did the appellate court itself violate the applicant’s equal-language Charter rights and privileges?

The Ontario Civil Liberties Association opposes the University of Ottawa's funding of the legal costs of the plaintiff/respondent: HERE-LINK.

A recent video-report about the case was published by Brave The World: HERE-LINK.

A blog-article history of the case is HERE-LINK.

All the court-filed documents in the case are HERE-LINK.

A file number has not yet been assigned to the Application. The procedure foresees that the file number is to be assigned within 30 days.