The People's Courts - Canadian Style

Ezra LEVANT has described the threats to our freedom of speech that we face from the various Human Rights Tribunals across our country. He makes his case very well in this recent speech to media lawyers - and indeed, I find the similarities chilling.

Walter SCHNEIDER of www.fathersforlife.org has also alluded that the various HRC's remind him of the hated "People's Court" (or "Volksgerichtshof") of Nazi Germany (and he should know, as he was young child during WWII in Germany).

This court was established to deal with treason after a disturbed communist sympathizer - Marinus van der Lubbe - was found guilty of starting the Reichstag fire on 27 Feb 1933. He was attempting to disrupt Hitler from gaining greater political power after assuming the position of Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Hitler used the fire as a pretext to incite fears of a "communist plot" to destabilize Germany and suceeded. In the ensuing election on 05 March 1933 the Nazi's (National Socialist Party) increased their share of the vote to 44% and with support of the National People's Party were able to claim a 52% majority.

The Volksgerichtshof were "special courts" operating outside the constitutional framework of law and had jurisdiction over a broad array of "political offenses". This included crimes like black marketeering, work slowdowns, and defeatism. Such crimes were viewed by the court as Wehrkraftzersetzung ("disintegration of defensive capability") and were punished severely. From 1934 - 1945 over 2,500 political prisoners were executed at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin after being found guilty by the Peoples Court.