Alberta appeal court sets aside contempt sanctions against pastor, brother and cafe owner
A Calgary-based avenue pastor, his brother and a restaurant proprietor, all of whom flouted public well being restrictions for months, have seen their contempt of courtroom sanctions put aside by the Alberta Court docket of Enchantment.
Pastor Artur Pawlowski of Avenue Church Ministries, his brother Dawid Pawlowski and Christopher Scott, who owns the Whistle Cease Cafe in Mirror, Alta., had been sentenced in October 2021 by Court docket of Queen’s Bench Justice Adam Germain.
They have been convicted of contempt of courtroom for breaking COVID-19 well being guidelines in June 2021, tied to the enforcement of an injunction granted a month earlier to Alberta Well being Companies (AHS).
All three have been fined, placed on probation and ordered to current the attitude of medical consultants in the event that they continued to ship public speeches that criticized COVID-19 public well being guidelines.
On Friday, the appeals courtroom put aside the speech provisions included in all three orders and put aside the sanctions in opposition to Scott and the contempt findings in opposition to each Pawlowskis, which resulted within the sanctions additionally falling.
The attraction courtroom agreed with the argument that the order didn’t apply to the Pawlowskis and did not sufficiently seize what they have been doing in Could 2021.
Sarah Miller, an affiliate with JSS Barristers who represented the brothers, mentioned although the Pawlowskis may be “considerably abrasive” at instances, she argued that the Court docket of Queen’s Bench justice made the choice based mostly on a disagreement with what the Pawlowskis have been doing.
“Fairly than the correct authorized evaluation as to, does the order apply, and if that’s the case, what’s an acceptable sanction?” Miller mentioned.
“They are not by any means endorsing the Pawlowskis, that is not what we have been asking for. However they’ve concluded that AHS didn’t get hold of an order that utilized to the Pawlowskis.”
The Pawlowski brothers had appealed the contempt findings and the sanctions, whereas Scott appealed solely the sanctions.
On the time of sentencing, Germain had mentioned the trio was “on the fallacious aspect of science” and the “fallacious aspect of frequent sense,” and that every one three had “inspired others to doubt the legitimacy of the pandemic.”
The panel additionally ordered that the fines the Pawlowskis paid be reimbursed, and that the Pawlowskis’ prices, set at $15,733.50, be paid by AHS to the brothers.
Pandemic orders
The Pawlowskis had held giant, maskless gatherings for church occasions in Calgary all through the pandemic. The Whistle Cease Cafe equally operated for months in defiance of public well being orders.
This incident was hardly the primary time Artur Pawlowski confronted authorized bother amid the pandemic. At instances, he was arrested inside days of his launch on different fees.
WATCH | Calgary avenue preacher, brother taken into custody:
Artur and Dawid Pawlowski have been arrested Could 8 after flouting public well being restrictions for months by holding giant church gatherings indoors, with out masks, in Calgary regardless of the pandemic. (Video: Artur Pawlowski TV/YouTube)
In January, the brothers have been arrested after a protest exterior the well being minister’s home in Calgary. Artur was later accused of inciting violence in the course of the blockade at the Coutts, Alta., border crossing.
Scott, the cafe proprietor, argued in his attraction that the sanctions utilized to him have been extreme and disproportionate and violated his rights underneath the constitution. He additionally argued the speech provisions weren’t requested by AHS, to which the courtroom agreed.
The panel mentioned it agreed these provisions needs to be put aside, writing {that a} decide sanctioning for civil contempt, like a sentencing decide, “ought to alert counsel earlier than imposing a sanction that exceeds or is considerably completely different from that sought by the opposite celebration and afford counsel the chance to handle the proposed sanction.”
It went on to say that Scott’s three days spent in jail, coupled with different sanctions, was adequate to mirror the seriousness of his breach of the injunction. It set a positive of $10,000 and eight months probation, already served, as new sanctions.
