If you were arrested and received a ticket for an infraction of the P6 bylaw during a CLAC demonstration on April 5 or May first, please send us your email adress, we will add your name to our list so that we can send you updates and organize collectively against the tickets.
If you haven't already entered a non-guilty plea for your ticket (last page of the ticket) for 1 May, information on how to do so is included at the end of this message. You have to do this within 30 days of the date you received the ticket. Note that sending your ticket to Denis Poitras is not the same as entering a non-guilty plea or challenging the ticket - you have to send or bring it to the Municipal Court.
After you send in your non-guilty plea, you will eventually receive a letter in the mail giving you a date to appear in court to challenge your ticket. Because there have been so many P6 tickets issued in the last few weeks, we will probably have to wait months, even years, before we get a court date.
In the meantime, Julien Villeneuve (Anarchopanda) has launched a constitutional challenge of P6. One person can challenge the law in this way and the decision will apply to everyone. So, if he wins, our tickets will be declared unconstitutional - they will be thrown out before we have to challenge them ourselves. If he loses, we will each have to defend ourselves, but we can go through the process together and support each other. If we get court dates before there is a decision on Julien's challenge, we can postpone our date until that decision is rendered.
There are many options for defending ourselves legally, if we get to that point: with or without a lawyer, in a group according to date and place of arrest, or individually. This summer, CLAC will be organizing workshops / info-meetings about how to challenge a ticket for those interested in getting more infomation about how this works. Also, please note that CLAC has a Legal Defense Fund which you may be able to access for certain expenses related to your arrest: you can read the guidelines here, www.clac-montreal.net/consignes_fonds_de_defense.
When you fill in the return form on the ticket with your non-guilty plea, don't forget to include that you want full disclosure of the evidence against you. You will then be able to see the evidence before going to court and this can be useful in helping you to defend yourself. You can write this in the part on the back of the return form where you are asked to make your statement. Don't write anything else in this space.
In addition to challenging our tickets, we can also decide to launch a class action suit (for everyone who has received a P6 ticket) or a civil suit against the city (individually or as a group). If you are interested in being involved in one of these initiatives or have other ideas for fighting against P6 on legal grounds, please write us at defense@clac-montreal.net;depending on interest, we may organize a meeting to discuss what we can do together.
Other legal defence committees and Denis Poitras, a lawyer, have created lists of arrestees and may also be interested in organizing a class action suit or civil suit. We are in touch with these other initiatives so that we can work together and avoid duplication.
Some people have asked us if it is necessary to send their name or a copy of their ticket to Denis Poitras. No, you do not need to send your ticket to Denis Poitras. Also, to challenge our tickets, we can decide as a group whether to defend ourselves without a lawyer or whether we want a lawyer and, if so, which one. Denis Poitras cannot automatically defend each person who has a ticket and, in addition, it is possible to defend ourselves without any lawyer. In any case, we have lots of time to think about it.
We are putting together a list of people who were arrested during CLAC's demonstrations, but you have probably seen other groups of arrestees on the internet (facebook or email). This can be confusing. We will do our best to keep you informed so that things are as clear as possible for everyone. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions about this issue.
We will send you any news that we get as soon as we get it! In the meantime, please write us at defense@clac-montreal.net if you have any questions.
Finally, please consider joining the CLAC P-6 Committee. We are actively opposing P6 political repression on anti-capitalist grounds. If you are interested in joining or want more information, please email us at info@clac-montreal.net.
In solidarity,
CLAC Legal Support and Self-Defence Committee
http://www.clac-montreal.net/soutien_juridique
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Did you receive a ticket?
- Be sure to plead "not-guilty" on your ticket.
- In the portion of the ticket that demands your version of events, ask for complete disclosure of all evidence.
- Do NOT write your version of events on the ticket.
- Be sure to mail back your ticket to Montreal’s municipal court within 30 days (important!).
- Also, get in touch with the CLAC Legal Support Committee (defense@clac-montreal.net) so we can stay in touch with you.
The CLAC Legal Support Committee will be discussing a challenge to the by-law, in collaboration with other efforts by allied groups.