OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – An Ontario judge ruled that political views posted on social media platforms cannot be used to jail or charge an individual with mischief.
As reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, Justice Robert Wadden of Ontario ruled in favor of Ontario resident David Romlewski, who faced charges for his participation in the Freedom Convoy protests.
“He is not to be convicted because of his political views, only criminal acts he committed,” Wadden noted.
The judge added that posting on Facebook in support of the Freedom Convoy was “an encouraging shout” and was not a criminal offence.
Romlewski was charged with obstructing police after he did not comply with an order from police on February 19 to leave an area close to Canada’s Parliament.
Police told him to “get up,” noting that if he did not do so, he was going to “get arrested.”
Romlewski instead stayed sitting in a pile of snow and made the sign of the cross.
Crown prosecutors pressed mischief charges against Romlewski and put forth as evidence a Facebook post he had made where he had given sympathetic notes to the “protest movement in general.”
Wadden wrote that as he understood it Romlewski’s Facebook post “would be available to his contacts or friends or visible to those who seek out his Facebook page.”
“There is no evidence before me that anyone who would be likely to see this post was actually at the Ottawa protests. There is no evidence the accused made any attempt to bring his post to the attention of the protest leaders or anyone involved in the Ottawa occupation,” Wadden noted.
He added that Romlewski was not a “trucker” and that there was “no evidence he brought a vehicle of any kind to Ottawa.”
“No one is alleging he was an organizer of the protest or was in any contact with the organizers,” the court noted.
Wadden said that no evidence linked him to the protests or that he was supporting the truckers in any meaningful way.
Some 230 people were arrested during the Freedom Convoy protest, with 119 of them facing Criminal Code (mostly mischief) charges.
Throughout most of the COVID crisis, Canadians from coast to coast were faced with COVID mandates, including jab dictates put in place by both the provincial and federal governments.
After much pushback, thanks in particularly to the Freedom Convoy of 2022, most provincial mandates were eliminated by the summer of 2022.
The Public Order Emergency Commission hearings into Trudeau’s unprecedented use of the EA began October 13 and are expected to last six weeks while hearing from at least 65 witnesses, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and many in his cabinet.