From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Judge Heather Perkins-McVey agreed that there is no direct evidence of common unlawful design between (Tamara) Lich and (Chris) Barber but said there is some circumstantial evidence to be considered.

The trial for Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed today for only the second court date since the new year, with Justice Heather Perkins-McVey deciding to dismiss an application by the Freedom Convoy leaders that asked the court to throw out so-called conspiracy charges.

As a result, the court will now hear the Canadian government’s argument that Lich and Barber acted as co-conspirators to organize what it claims was an illegal protest.

The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal cost, said in a press release sent to LifeSiteNews that the government is seeking to have “all statements made by Chris Barber during the convoy attributed to Tamara Lich.”

“In other words, the crown is seeking to have Barber’s statements treated in evidence as though Lich made them as well. In order to do this, the Crown has brought a Carter application wherein it argues that there was a ‘common unlawful design’ between Lich and Barber,” the TDF said.

On Thursday, lawyers for Lich and Barber had asked Perkins-McVey to dismiss a charge that they were acting as co-conspirators, saying there was no evidence that they had conspired for an illegal purpose.

Perkins-McVey, in her ruling, stated, according to the TDF, that although she “agreed that there is no direct evidence of common unlawful design between Lich and Barber, “there is some “circumstantial evidence to be considered.”

“Thus, given the existence of this circumstantial evidence to sustain the Carter application in favour of the Crown, she ruled that it was not appropriate at this stage to dismiss the Carter application,” the TDF said.

Perkins McVey, however, made clear that her dismissal of the application is not “the decision on the Crown’s Carter application,” but rather a decision on the “Defence’s application to dismiss on a directed verdict standard.”

“The Crown will still need to establish that the Carter application it initially brought should succeed,” the TDF said.

Perkins-McVey said in court, according to the TDF that at times it seemed as though counsel was arguing the merits of the Carter Application.

“The test here is whether there is any evidence of common unlawful design,” she said.

Lich and Barber are facing multiple charges from the 2022 protests, including mischief, counseling mischief, counseling intimidation and obstructing police for taking part in and organizing the anti-mandate Freedom Convoy. As reported by LifeSiteNews at the time, despite the non-violent nature of the protest and the charges, Lich was jailed for weeks before she was granted bail.

Besides the ongoing trial, Lich and Barber and a host of others recently filed a $2 million lawsuit against the Trudeau government for its use of the Emergencies Act (EA) to quash the Freedom Convoy in 2022.

Trial began September 2023 and was only supposed to last a few weeks

The trial, which has been ongoing since September 5 and was only supposed to last for a few weeks, will resume March 13-15 for three days.

Thus far, the government has asserted “that the absence of violence or peaceful nature of the protest didn’t make it lawful, emphasizing that the onus was on the Crown to prove the protest’s unlawfulness.”

The government has held steadfast to the notion in trying to prove that Lich and Barber somehow influenced the protesters’ actions through their words as part of a co-conspiracy. This claim has been rejected by the defense as weak.

The reality is that Lich and Barber collaborated with police on many occasions so that the protests were within the law.

In early 2022, thousands of Canadians from coast to coast came to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the Emergencies Act on February 14.

During the clear-out of protesters after the EA was put in place, an elderly lady was trampled by a police horse and one conservative female reporter was beaten by police and shot with a tear gas canister.

LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively.