SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Elizabeth May

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Green Party
  • Saanich—Gulf Islands
  • British Columbia
  • Voting Attendance: 61%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $201,868.20

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Ms. Elizabeth May
  • May/23/24 10:14:41 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I think all these specific examples that are exploited end up leading people to doubt some of the fundamentals of our British common law criminal justice system, which is that one is innocent until proven guilty. People out on bail are essentially legally innocent people. They have not been found guilty of crimes. We can take the example, recently, of Umar Zameer, who was involved in a tragic accident in which a police officer was killed in July 2021. The prosecution and the justice system decided to charge him with first-degree murder, which would indicate that he knowingly knew this was a policeman and that he deliberately killed him. He was not released. He was only found not guilty nearly three years later, and in the court, in an extraordinary measure, the judge apologized to Mr. Zameer. His lawyer, Mr. Nader Hasan, reports that he was also harassed and received hate mail for the horror that he would represent someone who was charged with first-degree murder. Again, this was someone who nearly had his liberties taken from him forever, in what was a very harsh prosecution, but the essence of the response, immediately when he was released on bail, from public figures whom I respect, such as former Toronto mayor John Tory, was “How could this happen?” and “this is dreadful”. Does the minister have any concerns, as I do, that if we fail to remember that we are innocent until proven guilty in our criminal law system, we are at larger peril than the individual cases we are talking about?
269 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border