A.N.B. v. Hancock, 2013 ABQB 97: http://canlii.ca/t/fwx39
In brief, A.N.B. attempts to sue a bunch of judges, lawyers, RCMP officers, government officials, and child services workers to get lots of money ($20 million “in gold and silver bullion”) and custody of his children. The basis for his claims? A large stack of stereotypic and not so stereotypic OPCA documents. The lawsuit is struck, and the other parties are awarded solicitor and own client costs, totaling $20,000. A.N.B. does not complain about that as he has already left the courtroom.
With those formalities taken care of, what's new here? Well, actually something quite intriguing. A.N.B. apparently has convictions for harassment and intimidation of state employees, particularly lawyers, and on that basis the Court permitted the lawyers in this matter to appear but remain anonymous, and have all communications to and from them run through a kind of filter to keep their identities concealed, even from A.N.B.'s own lawyer.
A.C.J. Rooke presents this as an example of a more general rule:
The threshold for these remedies is set very low, provided these precautions do not affect the substantive aspects of a proceeding. It will be very interesting to see in what other contexts this principle is applied, say for example, witnesses.[19] OPCA litigation and OPCA litigants represent an unusual and in certain senses unprecedented challenge to Canadian court procedures and processes. In Meads, at paras. 256 and 261, I observed that novel court procedures may be necessary to respond to this new and potentially dangerous social phenomenon. My Order that opposing Counsel are not required to provide their personal identification, including to Counsel acting for A.N.B., is, I believe, an appropriate and necessary response to the risk A.N.B. potentially represents to those who are part of the court, state, and legal apparatus.
[20] I believe that security precautions of this general kind should be broadly available where those precautions do not affect an OPCA litigant’s ability to advance and respond to arguments in court. A low threshold for these special procedures is therefore appropriate. A court may order a safeguard of this kind where a party establishes an air of reality to an actual or potential threat or danger. A.N.B.’s prior, admitted, criminal misconduct without question meets that threshold. The serious charges for which he currently faces trial only strengthens the foundation on which the Crown’s application was based.
[21] I leave to another day whether a person’s affiliation or self‑identification with an OPCA movement with known violent propensities is a sufficient basis to order precautions of this kind.
Beyond that, it appears that A.C.J. Rooke is using this litigation as a kind of tool to examine various OPCA litigation motifs, such as the spurious use of legal maxims (paras. 60-64), and to more fully explore the application of the Meads v. Meads concepts in a different factual setting. One thing I like about this decision is that the position of A.N.B. is reviewed and rebutted in detail, along with his litigation strategies and materials.
I am going to stop my commentary at this point given the statutory prohibition against actions that may identify A.N.B.'s children, see the publication ban in the judgment preamble.
SMS Möwe