Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jul 2015
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2015 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Page: A8

B.C. RUNS AMOK, SEIZES BLEAK HOUSE

The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is getting more and more ingenious - 
too ingenious. This month, Seyed Nima Razavi Zadeh was convicted of 
sexual assault. He is in custody pending sentencing. In the interim, 
the CFO is moving to seize his condominium, which he bought nine 
years ago for $290,000. The CFO will argue that the condominium unit 
was a "staging ground" for his crime and possibly others.

Yes, Mr. Razavi Zadeh committed a crime, was convicted and will be 
sentenced. But the civil forfeiture law was created to go after the 
proceeds of organized crime. In this case, as in many others, the CFO 
is stretching the law far beyond its original intent and beyond what 
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms should allow. Does his crime 
justify the expropriation of his property without compensation, or 
even making him homeless?

Odd enough as this case is, at least it involves an actual criminal 
offence. B.C.'s CFO has a long history of seizing property from 
people convicted of nothing.

Consider this: Five years ago, the RCMP entered a house in Surrey, 
B.C., suspecting a grow-op. A safe was found in a three-year-old 
child's bedroom; there was $129,820 inside. The child's father, 
Dennis Johnson, said he kept thousands of dollars at home because he 
didn't believe in banks and didn't trust them. Charges were laid.

But three years later, a provincial court judge threw out the charges 
of marijuana production and theft of electricity because of delay. 
The Johnsons are also pursuing a remedy for what they say were 
Charter breaches when the police entered their house.

Enter the Civil Forfeiture Office. It is suing the Johnsons in a 
civil claim for unpaid electricity. The local electricity authority 
was not the plaintiff, but rather the CFO, which now has a lengthy 
history of incongruous, sometimes oppressive claims, often against 
people with a tenuous connection to an offence, alleged or proven.

In mid-July, Justice Miriam Maisonville of the B.C. Supreme Court 
decided to split off the Johnsons' Charter breach claims from the 
CFO's alleged siphoning off of electricity. But there is no longer 
any underlying offence that could entitle the CFO to the $129,820 and 
other chunks of cash that were lying about.

These bizarre underpinnings for forfeiture of property resemble 
Charles Dickens' Bleak House or, much further back, Aristophanes' The 
Wasps. The B.C. Civil Forfeiture Office is becoming a satire - of 
itself. But if you're its target, you aren't laughing.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom