Judge decides ‘Freedom Convoy’ organizer Tamara Lich stays out on bail

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OTTAWA — Tamara Lich, a key organizer of the “Freedom Convoy” protest that gridlocked Ottawa for weeks, will stay launched on bail whereas awaiting trial, a decide dominated Wednesday.

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Ontario Superior Courtroom Justice Kevin Phillips mentioned he made his determination as a result of she has adopted her bail circumstances, her surety has supervised her effectively and he or she’s already had a “style of jail,” which he mentioned lowered her danger to reoffend.

The decide mentioned he doesn’t settle for that Lich breached her launch circumstances by agreeing to obtain an award, and added Lich will be trusted to respect the circumstances of her launch.

She was launched in March with an extended record of circumstances, together with a ban from all social media and an order to not “help something associated to the Freedom Convoy.”

The phrases of Lich’s launch have been meant to forestall an identical protest from occurring within the nationwide capital, the decide mentioned, including the courtroom doesn’t search to manage folks’s political beliefs.

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“The courts are usually not a thought police. We search solely to manage conduct to the extent that sure behaviour will violate or probably result in violation of the regulation,” he mentioned.

The protest is over and has left Ottawa, he mentioned, including it might be “virtually unattainable” to mount an identical protest within the metropolis once more.

Lich’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, mentioned in an interview Wednesday that he was happy with the choice.

“She’ll have the ability to conduct her life in much more regular vogue because of the decide’s ruling,” mentioned Greenspon.

Moiz Karimjee, a Crown prosecutor, mentioned final week that Lich violated one among her bail circumstances by agreeing to just accept an award for her management through the Ottawa protest, and ought to be despatched again behind bars to attend for her trial.

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Greenspon argued final week her bail circumstances ought to be loosened to permit her to come back to Ontario and use social media.

He instructed the courtroom that the social media ban imposed on Lich was unnecessarily broad and has had a big impact on her life whereas she’s been out of custody.

Nevertheless, Phillips mentioned Wednesday the ban on Lich’s entry to social media is warranted.

“Social media could be a problematic suggestions loop the place folks get egged on and caught up in group exercise they’d by no means carry out on their very own,” he mentioned.

Social media “undoubtedly contributed to and even drove” Lich’s conduct associated to the protest, and her separation from it’s essential to decrease her danger of reoffending, mentioned Phillips.

Noting that Lich is in her late 40s, Phillips mentioned she ought to have the ability to bear in mind “ use the social abilities she certainly constructed up earlier than the appearance of the web.”

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Lich is ready to talk by many different means, together with e mail, cellphone or assembly in particular person, he mentioned.

Greenspon mentioned whereas he would have favored to see the social media ban reversed, “an important factor was the rejection of the Crown’s efforts to to place her again in jail for agreeing to just accept an award.”

The decide did amend her launch circumstances to permit her to go to Ottawa.

Lich’s motivation for coming to town can’t be disclosed as a result of it’s beneath a court-ordered publication ban.

Phillips reiterated the excessive unlikelihood that Lich might arrange an occasion resembling the convoy protest.

Whereas she’s permitted to come back to Ottawa, Lich shouldn’t be allowed to go to the downtown core in order not “to stroll across the very neighbourhoods she is alleged to have traumatized,” he mentioned, besides to attend courtroom or meet with authorized counsel.

Lich and fellow protest organizer Chris Barber are collectively accused of mischief, obstructing police, counselling others to commit mischief and intimidation.

The “Freedom Convoy” protest advanced right into a weeks-long demonstration that congested the streets of Ottawa in February.