Criminal polygamy charges against two controversial religious leaders were quashed on Wednesday when a Canadian judge ruled the appointment of the case prosecutor was “unlawful.”
The ruling by the Supreme Court of British Columbia effectively threw out one charge of polygamy each against Winston Blackmore and James Oler, rival leaders of a fundamentalist religious community in the westernmost Canadian province. There was no immediate word on whether the provincial government would appeal the ruling.
“It’s premature for me to speculate on that,” said Neil MacKenzie, a spokesman for the prosecution.
The men were charged early this year on the recommendation of special prosecutor Terrence Robertson. He was the third special prosecutor to be appointed in the case, after the first two declined to press charges under Canada’s polygamy law, which several experts have said would not hold up to the country’s constitutional rights and freedoms.
The ruling is the latest controversy over a polygamous community near Bountiful, in rural southeastern British Columbia. Residents are affiliated with rival sects of breakaway Mormons and the male members of the fundamentalist church engage in multiple marriages. The community has about 1,000 members, of which some 900 are women and children.
Since 1990, when police first investigated allegations of polygamy in Bountiful, Canadian police, governments and prosecutors have debated how to deal with the group.
Robertson’s decision to charge the men was contrary to several previous legal opinions that Canada’s polygamy law is unconstitutional and unenforceable, Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein wrote in her decision.
Stromberg-Stein noted that previous experts advised the province to ask a senior court to rule on the legislation without charges, in a procedure called a reference case.
Her decision followed a request argued in June by Blackmore, who married at least 19 women and is believed to have fathered dozens of children, and Oler, who married two women, to throw out the charges against them. They had accused Wally Oppal, a former judge and the attorney general at the time, of “special prosecutor shopping.”
The complicated ruling did not directly address the cases of either Blackmore or Oler and their admitted multiple marriages — or whether polygamy is indeed a criminal act under Canadian law.
Instead, Stromberg-Stein’s ruling concluded that the attorney general “had no jurisdiction” to tap Robertson as special prosecutor. The judge dissolved his appointment and his decision to approve the charges against Blackmore and Oler.
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