Jaggi Singh, the activist who is defending himself in a Superior Court trial against charges that he and two others participated in a riot in October 2000, stood up in protest during jury selection yesterday afternoon.
Prosecutor Kathleen Caron had just disqualified the second black candidate of the day, and Singh told presiding Judge Jean-Guy Boilard that he didn't want to be tried by an all-white jury.
The judge said it was not his job to second-guess juror selection, and Singh retorted: "I'm just noting it for the record."
For the record, the bilingual jury, which was chosen by 3:30 p.m., is composed of nine women and three men whose backgrounds range from a stay-at-home housewife to a daycare worker to the manager of a printing company.
During the next three weeks, they will sit in judgment of Singh and his co-accused, Cristina
Xydous and Jonathan Aspireault-Massé.
All three are charged with participating in a riot while G20 finance ministers met at the Sheraton Hotel on René Lévesque Blvd. in downtown Montreal on Oct. 23, 2000.
The maximum penalty on conviction is two years in prison.
Boilard told jury candidates that neither he nor any parties in the case were looking for a candidate so bilingual that they could move effortlessly and elegantly between French and English like late prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
Someone with the more workman-like ability of Prime Minister Jean Chr?tien would do just fine, he said, while 100-per-cent comprehension was not necessary - 70 or 80 per cent would suffice.
He explained that both Xydous and Aspireault-Mass? were being represented by lawyer Pascal Lescarbeau, while Singh had a right to represent himself.
"Sometimes, I might add tongue in cheek, that he's better off that way," the judge said.
The comment had resonance, coming from a judge who has been known in the past to take lawyers to task.
More than three-quarters of the candidates asked outright for exemptions, using excuses that ranged from being unilingual to having a criminal record for such infractions as shoplifting.
One man said he had been a student activist, but his accent was so heavy that Boilard said he excused him simply because he didn't understand what the man had said.
lfitterman@thegazette.canwest.com
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