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Freedom activist Monica Smit wins case against Australian gov’t but still must pay $240k

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13 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

I accused the police of unlawfully arresting me those three times. I was offered $15,000 to walk away. I said no because I wanted my day in court. I wanted to use my story to highlight the injustices that many Victorians experienced during 2020-2022.

Recently I represented myself against a team of government lawyers during a 13-day trial over 7 weeks and won! That’s great news, isn’t it? But there is a twist that has become far more important to this story than the victory itself. It will have you asking, “What is the price of justice?”

Imagine you’ve been wronged by a government body.

Imagine your liberty was taken from you without just cause.

Imagine that no one was willing to take accountability or admit any fault.

Imagine you were offered a measly $15,000 with no private or public vindication.

If you take the money, you have permission to keep asserting that you think you were wronged, but you will never get closure. It will always be your word against theirs.

Who benefits if you take the deal?

Well, the government benefits because they are using taxpayers’ money to pay you off and they will avoid public embarrassment or taking accountability. You benefit a little because you win a bit of money and avoid the stress that comes with a long trial.

You get to skip away into the sunset with your ‘hush money’/bribe, and nothing changes for anyone else. The government continues to feel emboldened by their limitless power and gets further confirmation that they are invincible. The ‘little people’ like you and me stay in our box and accept that we are powerless against authority, even when we’re victims.

Who benefits if you don’t take the deal?

The court makes money regardless of what the trial is.

The team of lawyers bill out their hours as usual. They get paid regardless of the outcome. The longer the trial. the better.
You might benefit because you get to air your grievances publicly and have a chance at vindication and closure.

Even better. if you set a precedent, it could benefit every single person in the country, The government might be forced to be accountable and implement new policies and procedures to ensure other don’t lose their liberty without just cause.

These are your options; take the money, avoid inevitable stress and at least a few people benefit…including the perpetrators, or say no to ‘hush money’, pursue justice, have your voice heard, and hope that more people benefit in the end, despite the risks.

But wait. There’s a catch to the second option: if you choose the full trial and win, you might have to pay the cost of the government’s legal fees. If the judge gives you the public vindication you seek but awards you less money than the government offered to shut you up, then technically you lose because the outcome would have been ‘better’ had you taken the deal.

My name is Monica Smit, and this is my story.

On October 31,  2020, I was arrested three times in one day while working as an independent journalist at a protest in Victoria, Australia. Victoria has since been correctly labelled the ‘worst locked down state in the world.’ I was on the ground at a protest reporting on a significant period in our history. I had a big following and was openly critical of the current government’s restrictions around the so-called pandemic.

I accused the police of unlawfully arresting me those three times. I was offered $15,000 to walk away. I said no because I wanted my ‘day in court’. I wanted to use my story to highlight the injustices that many Victorians experienced during 2020-2022. And despite the risks, I went all the way. I represented myself in a 13-day trial that spanned over 7 weeks.

The government’s team consisted of two barristers and two solicitors in the court room working full-time every day of the trial. On the other side I was standing on my own, sometimes with a McKenzie friend beside me, and with supporters in the audience.

Appearing at that trial was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done in my entire life. The emotional and mental energy needed to pull this off far exceeded my expectations. On top of that, I had to pay around $1,500/day to the courts every day for the use of the room and resources.

Despite all the difficulties, I did my best, and I am pleased with my efforts. I convinced the court that two out of the three arrests were unlawful. What a victory!

Or at least that’s what I thought until the judge awarded me only $4,000 in damages.

Again, I had been offered $15,000 to avoid court. I then won the case by two-thirds. But instead of celebrating my win, I had to spend the night preparing to fight tooth and nail to avoid paying for the government’s legal costs. How is this fair?

To restate this, on Thursday, September 12, I won my case against the government. Two out of the three arrests were found to be unlawful. On Friday, September 13, I was ordered to pay over $240,000 to cover the costs of the government’s loss to an inexperienced self-represented citizen.

I represented myself and won against an experienced team of barristers and lawyers. I got the public vindication I was seeking—but then I was punished for the pleasure of daring to seek justice.

I don’t view success in monetary terms. For me, it was always about using my voice to speak for those without a voice. Thousands of Victorians were abused during the COVID lockdowns, and they and don’t have the resources to pursue justice for themselves. The offer of $15,000 did not have justice attached to it in any form whatsoever. It was the proposed exploitation of taxpayers’ money to make me shut up and go away.

I would never do that, and I don’t care what the consequences are. The ‘safe option’ is never the right option for me.

What is the price of justice? I guess you could say that in this case, the price of justice was $240,000. But how can justice be available to everyone if it cost that much? The answer is simple. Justice is not available to everyone. In fact, it’s available to almost no-one at all.

Every single person at the bench and bar tables in that courtroom got paid every single day, except for me!

I paid to be there, I paid to have my voice heard, I paid to represent myself, I paid to win, and I paid for justice.

To be frank, I never thought this could happen. How naïve I was that I thought I could seek justice and walk away unscathed.

But who was I kidding? Ever since I  first opened my mouth and created a platform over 4 years ago, I have been punished over and over, and there is no end in sight.

Luckily for me, I can handle this. I was born a little crazy, and I possess the right amount of crazy to deal with these intense mental hardships. I have a supportive network of family and friends. I have complete faith in God, and I just go with the flow. It’s how I am, and I thank God every day for giving me the strength to keep laughing punishment in the face.

A year after this first incident, I was punished again by being arrested and charged with incitement. I was given bail conditions that could have been written in Communist China. They wanted me to shut down my business which had 6-7 staff members and hundreds of thousands of members. My website got over 5 million views that year, and they wanted me to shut it down.

I refused to sign those draconian bail conditions and was sent to maximum security prison, even put in solitary confinement, to await the appeal of the conditions. I won the appeal and was let free. I pleaded “not guilty,” and soon after they dropped the charges. I will be suing them for my imprisonment despite the difficulties I faced in this recent trial.

The ‘system’ needed to do this to me to discourage other people from pursuing public vindication. I refused to take a deal outside of court, and so they needed to make an example out of me. They need others to fall in line, to think that if they don’t, they’ll be punished just like Monica Smit.  I think that they want to scare me from pursuing my next court case.

Well, it won’t work.

I am skilled at finding silver linings.  My experience will highlight the injustice within the justice system. How can someone win their case but pay over $240.000 for the pleasure of winning? It’s so shocking that it will inevitable get noticed. I have complete peace that I did my best and had pure intentions. I put the rest in God’s hands.

Thank you everyone for your support and prayers along the way.

Monica’s note:I will not be conducting a fundraiser for this. I am confident God will look after me and I will be able to figure this out. But you can my audiobook for only $10 (Australian)  here.

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Alberta

Class Action Lawsuit Against the Province of Alberta – Rath on Behalf of Ingram and Scott

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Sheldon Yakiwchuk

From Yakk Stack

To preface, the amount of knowledge I have in our legal system would fit into a thimble with a lot of room leftover to hold, well…a lot of other stuff that would fit into a thimble.

But I’m going to do my best to cover the certification hearing for the Class Action Lawsuit against the Province of Alberta by Rath and Company, on behalf of Rebecca Ingram and Chris Scott.

For the purposes of keeping this to a reasonable length, I’ll be hitting more along the lines of the high-notes instead of going through and summarizing the thousands of pages submitted by Rath and Co + the Province and keep to what I found most interesting throughout the 2 days I’d spent down at the courthouse viewing. The hearing was to allow both sides to submit their briefs and so that Justice Feasby could make sure that he understood the base of their cases, qualify information and take it away for judgement.

Even if Rath is successful in having this Class Action Certified, there is still a long road ahead to succeed in getting damages covered and a trial to be had and because of the specifics of the mishandling by the Province throughout the pandemic, if they are successful here, it doesn’t mean that every other province can proceed ahead, under the same criteria.

What does this mean?

The previous case against the Province with Rebecca Ingram, showed that the non-pharmaceutical interventions – lockdowns, businesses closed, capacity limits…were ruled Ultra Vires (beyond legal power or authority), by Justice Romaine…in that, these weren’t actually made by the Chief Medical Officer of Health (CMOH), Deena Hinshaw, they were made by Cabinet…and Cabinet hid behind Hinshaw issuing these orders under the Public Health Act instead of working with the Emergency Management Act.

Because of “Cabinet Privilege”, information was revealed by the CMOH and Justice Romaine – in camera (private) – we can only speculate the reasons for this.

One could argue that because the province and Alberta Health Services got 100% of everything wrong during the pandemic, that this was just another link in the very weak chain…

However, it’s also possible that the Cabinet Members making these decisions wanted to hide and remain hidden for political purposes, as in…those making the decisions to close down businesses didn’t want to have to face voters in a subsequent election, knowing the damages that they’d caused in the business community.

Seeing how many small businesses were closed down, to never reopen…savings spent, jobs and homes lost, lives impacted by these decisions, arguably touching every single person in the province, would make for some bad press and a constituencies filled with voters showing up with a chip on their shoulder towards those who made these decisions and still chose to run for Legislature again.

In addition to this…If the orders were run through the Emergency Management Act, all of the businesses impacted would be entitled to compensation, whereas under the Public Healthcare Act…they weren’t.

It’s based on these specificities that Rath argued that the Province acted in ‘Bad Faith’ as the basis for their case, in that, the province made decisions that they didn’t have the authority to make and absolutely had to have known would harm businesses and made them through the PHA which restricted these businesses from being compensated.

Rath had completed his presentation of their brief before lunch on the first day, where Feasby had a couple of points that he wanted clarified…which was completed after lunch on this same day.

And then…the Province took the podium.

As I’d previously stated, this was a bloodbath for the afternoon of Day 1 and continued on throughout their presentation on Day 2, where by Feasby openly mocked each member of the Province – Dube, Chu and Flanders.

Rightfully so, if I might add, because a lot of their logic was illogical and even to those of us in the gallery, laughable both with and without comments from the Justice.

On day 2, because of the chorus of opened mouthed guffaw from the gallery, we’d all received a warning try and keep it down.

Arguments made by the province which were stunning and laughable:

  • The public does have a right to accountability and that these would be ‘Ballot Box Issues’, of course recognizing that Cabinet was the ones who made these decisions but because they were hidden behind Cabinet Confidence, we can’t actually have accountability, which of course Dube knew;
  • The Plaintiffs (Rath on behalf of Ingram and Scott) needed to name the members responsible – which were, again, hidden by cabinet confidence;
  • There is no fiduciary accountability afforded under the Public Health Act, where the interventions were deemed Ultra Vires;
  • The Province couldn’t have known that businesses would be harmed by the orders – where Feasby stated that it would be impossible for them to Not Know;
  • Businesses are not members of a vulnerable group – though were identified by the CMOH orders;
  • There is no Nexus or Proximity between the Acts (CMOH orders) and Injury – where Feasby stated causation where orders made, closed businesses, that caused injury was the connection;
  • A breach of the Bill of Rights does not necessitate compensation, where the use of the Public Health Act was engaged illegally by cabinet;
  • No common issues exist – where all businesses that were impacted were impacted financially;
  • Not all businesses that were impacted abided by the CMOH orders, though they may be able to still show financial losses during these times;
  • Abuse of Power, by Cabinet in their orders, wasn’t actually an Abuse of Power because it was done in good faith;
  • Even without the orders, during the pandemic, people still wanted to just stay home and avoid going out – they actually said this;
  • Although the Pandemic Orders were deemed Ultra Vires, they were valid at the time. This was particularly stupid as an argument made repeatedly by Chu and lost the province some large points with Feasby. Her logic is that the orders WERE Valid up until the time they were deemed Ultra Vires…where Feasby stated, a definitive ‘Nope’. Once they were deemed Ultra Vires, this extended back to when they were put in place.
  • The Plaintiffs should be suing Alberta Health Services, arguing that AHS is not the province, again another stupid point where the judge stated, “You can’t stand here with a straight face and make this as an argument”.
  • Expropriation of businesses wasn’t actually expropriation (businesses shut down or limited in capacity were essentially expropriated – partially or fully taken away from leaseholders and property owners), because there were no transfer of titles and they weren’t kept by the province on a forever hold. When I’d asked Eva Chipiuk about this, she stated that the province had effectively made this up as terms of expropriation, this isn’t what it actually means…and this was clarified to the Justice by Jeff on reply following the Province stating their case on Day 2.
  • Classes of businesses could not be identified for a Class Action Lawsuit – where, orders put out by the CMOH on behalf of Cabinet, specifically identified the types of businesses that would need to close or limit capacity. Jeff made a point on this where in the early stages, Casinos and Stripper Bars were allowed to be left open while Schools were closed. I did get a good laugh out of this recollection of events;
  • It would be more beneficial for businesses who were harmed to represent themselves individually instead of through a Class Action – where smaller businesses would pay in excess of their claim in legal fees and clog the courts for decades;
  • Businesses that lost money throughout this time would have immediately made it back once they were reopened – of which there is absolutely no way they could make this determination especially given the fact that hundreds of businesses closed forever during this time;
  • Chris Scott and the Whistle Stop Cafe isn’t a suitable representation in the class action because Scott didn’t abide by CMOH orders, crowd funded over $100k, needed to hire more staff because of the surge of business that he’d received because of publicity around his location, paid off a loan for property, all in 2021…where, Chris did actually abide by CMOH orders in 2020, did lose money, was on the verge of bankruptcy and only worked to mitigate damages following several months of losses due to the CMOH orders;
  • Chris Scott may have actually made more because of the pandemic, despite the fact that he was arrested, closed down, abided by CMOH orders in 2020, was getting death threats because of being branded negatively through media spun by his lack of compliance for the orders to keep him from losing everything;

There may be more…this is what I could get out of the 36 pages of notes that I’d taken over the course of the 2 days…but basically the Province brought in the C-Team of Lawyers making in attempts to make the case that:

AHS is not the province, acted illegally but in good faith, is not responsible for any damages because they didn’t fully expropriate businesses forever, couldn’t have known that businesses wouldn’t suffer from financial losses in being closed or restricted for months on end and even if they did, probably made their money back if not more money when they finally opened and couldn’t be lumped together because REASONS.

Whereas against the province, Rath and Company makes the claim that:

Cabinet made decisions that turned into illegal orders under the Public Healthcare Act, not using the Emergency Management Act so that they could hide the identity of the decision makers and skate on being financially liable for losses they knew would be incurred by businesses that were shut – acting in bad faith.

And again…while I don’t know a whole lot about the legal system, all of the laws and terms used throughout these 2 days, can appreciate that all requirements for a Class Action were met and responded to. The legality and relevance of these will be weighed by Justice Feasby and he’d seemed confident that he’ll be able to have a ruling on the Certification for Class Action by December 1st, 2024…and closed out with a statement that he wasn’t going to be accepting any additional documentation from either party. They’d effectively had their ‘day in court’, and had opportunity to clarify their cases.

Hope ya made it through all of this…and I hope it makes as much sense to you as does to me as in a solid – kinda. If you were watching the livestream or in the gallery and noted anything additional worthy of mention or correct me in any errors, please do so in the comments.

I’m looking forward to the next leg in this journey!


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Brownstone Institute

The FOIA Lady Pleads the Fifth

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From the Brownstone Institute

By Maryanne Demasi Maryanne Demasi  

Morens implicated Margaret (Marg) Moore, known colloquially as “The FOIA lady” in trying to hide information from the American people, particularly that related to the origins of Covid-19, which is a felony.

A relatively unknown public records officer at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now at the centre of a burgeoning scandal involving Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

The saga unfolded after subpoenaed emails belonging to David Morens, a former top advisor to Anthony Fauci, revealed that someone had taught him to game the system and avoid emails being captured by FOIA requests.

“i learned from our foia lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe,” Morens wrote in a Feb 24, 2021, email. “Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to gmail.”

Morens implicated Margaret (Marg) Moore, known colloquially as “The FOIA lady” in trying to hide information from the American people, particularly that related to the origins of Covid-19, which is a felony.

It sparked an investigation by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic to expose what Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) called a “cover-up.”

letter to NIH director Monica Bertagnolli in May suggested “a conspiracy at the highest levels” of these once trusted public health institutions.

“If what appears in these documents is true, this is an apparent attack on public trust and must be met with swift enforcement and consequences for those involved,” Wenstrup wrote.

Wenstrup said there was evidence that a former chief of staff of Fauci’s might have used intentional misspellings — such as “Ec~Health” instead of “EcoHealth” — to prevent emails from being captured in keyword searches by FOIA officials.

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Today, Wenstrup announced a subpoena to compel Moore (The FOIA lady) to appear for a deposition on October 4, 2024, saying that she’d repeatedly resisted these efforts and delayed the Select Subcommittee’s investigation.

“Her alleged scheme to help NIH officials delete COVID-19 records and use their personal emails to avoid FOIA is appalling and deserves a thorough investigation,” said Wenstrup.

“Holding Ms. Moore accountable for any role she played in undermining American trust is a step towards improving the lack of accountability and absence of transparency rapidly spreading across many agencies within our federal government,” he added.

Moore, however, has indicated through her lawyers that she would invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Her lawyers wrote to Wenstrup explaining that she’d cooperated with the Select Subcommittee to find “an alternative” to sitting for an interview, including expediting her own FOIA request for her own documents.

They also explained that Morens’ emails suggesting Moore gave tips “about avoiding FOIA,” were misleading because Morens, under oath said, “That was a joke…She didn’t give me advice about how to avoid FOIA.”

Nonetheless, Moore’s decision to plead the Fifth has only fuelled concern over the lack of transparency and accountability of one of the nation’s top health research institutions.

It’s not over until the FOIA lady sings!


Further reading: The great FOIA dodge

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

Maryanne Demasi

Maryanne Demasi, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, is an investigative medical reporter with a PhD in rheumatology, who writes for online media and top tiered medical journals. For over a decade, she produced TV documentaries for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and has worked as a speechwriter and political advisor for the South Australian Science Minister.

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