After days of voir-dire hearing to determine admissibility, presiding Supreme Court Justice Bruce Josephson ruled that a videotape appended to an affidavit by defendant Tronde Halle could be shown to the jury of the Ts'peten (Gustafsen Lake) trial.
Halle's sworn affidavit refuted an August 27, 1995, RCMP report of an "ambush". Two RCMP officers alleged that the camp initiated fire upon the two Victoria ERT members, who were allegedly struck in the back and saved only by their bulletproof protective gear. The video tape would appear to contradict this story, and suggests that it was police who initiated fire on the camp. Moreover, RCMP negotiator John Ward was overheard on a police "training" videotape acquired by the defence, remarking that "this isn't the first time we've had to take flak jackets to the firing range," implying that RCMP had shot the jackets themselves.
Native rights lawyer Bruce Clark testified that upon his arrival at the camp on August 31, 1995, he was told the "ambush" didn't happen, but was an RCMP "con job": a "set up". Instead, on that day a police suburban had encroached "right to the periphery of the camp."
Clark stated to the court he had two messages to take in to the camp: that the Supreme Court of Canada had granted a hearing on September 12, 1995, of a jurisdictional appeal from one of the Delgamuukw appellants, and that there was "no change in instructions" from the Ts'peten Sundancers' medicine man John Stevens.
"After September 12," Clark testified, "I felt the Supreme Court had signed a death warrant for the people at Gustafsen Lake." [transcripts at http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/clark/sep12scc.html]
Clark then read from the 1875 Order in Council dealing with the federal government's duty of disallowance which struck down BC lands legislation over unceded Indian territory. The Order reads in part:
"Considering, then, these several features of the case, that no surrender or cession of their territorial rights, whether the same be of a legal or equitable nature, has been ever executed by the Indian Tribes of the Province - that they allege that the reservations of land made by the Government for their use have been arbitrarily so made, and are totally inadequate to their support and requirements, and without their assent - that they are not averse to hostilities in order to enforce rights which it is impossible to deny them, and that the Act under consideration not only ignores those rights, but expressly prohibits the Indians from enjoying the rights or recording or pre-empting lands, except by consent of the Lieutenant-Governor; - the undersigned cannot do otherwise than advise that the Act in question is objectionable, as tending to deal with lands which are assumed to be the absolute property of the Province, an assumption which completely ignores, as applicable to the Indians of British Columbia, the honor and good faith with which the Crown has, in all other cases...dealt with their Indian tribes...The undersigned would also refer to the British North America Act, 1867, Section 109, applicable to British Columbia, which enacts that all lands belonging to the Province shall belong to the Province 'subject to any trust existing in respect thereof, and to and interest, other than that of the Province, in the same.' That which has been ordinarily spoken of as the 'Indian Title' must, of necessity, consist of some species of interest in the lands of British Columbia."Clark said the order reiterated the existing "rights and remedies" contained in the Royal Proclamation of 1763. British Columbia, nevertheless, considers aboriginal rights unilaterally extinguishable at the Provincial Crown's pleasure; it survives to this day as a "special racist enclave." Clark noted that following the passage of Governor Sir James Douglas from the colonial scene, "a bunch of jobbers and crooks took over, like Trutch," referring to the BC Land Commissioner who once stated "you can as much prate of the rights of a she-bear or panther to the soil, as talk of the 'Indian Title'".
Interestingly, the Minister of Justice advised in the 1875 Order In Council Duty of Disallowance that there is "Indian Title capable of being vindicated when in competition with the Province", Clark said, "predicting the outcome of third party adjudication, as recommended by Queen Anne in 1704." Instead of following its own recommendations, the federal government fell in with the fraud of the Province, "allowed acknowledged illegal legislation to stand", and brought in the 1876 Indian Act, "because it was and is politically expedient to continue the genocide."
Dr. Clark then contrasted the racist, "we decide, Just-Us" system, with independent 3rd party adjudication: "Justice". Clark related the 1608 Calvin's case, in which Lord Coke ruled "infidels are the subjects of the devil and should be extirpated". This was overruled by Lord Mansfield who called Coke's decision "a strange extrajudicial opinion that will not make reason not to be reason nor law not to be law."
This parallels the racist judicial position which repeatedly rationalizes and "pseudo-justifies" land theft and usurpation. The truly just decisions resulted because judges rejected racist degradation and recognized the law that acknowledges Indians are rightful occupants with rights of sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Newcomer courts have repeatedly proven themselves in conflict with the law, and "are firmly entrenched at this point in criminal racism." "That's why we ask you to recommend third party adjudication," Clark told the six woman, six man jury. "Your recommendation for third party adjudication can change world history. This monstrosity we've constructed will be over and this country can begin healing."