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James Top, who completed a protest march against a vaccine order from Vancouver to Ottawa on June 30, will face a court martial on charges previously raised against him by the military.
Topp holds the rank of Warrant Officer and is currently in the reserve role after joining a regular unit.
He was charged in February with two acts against the prejudice of order and discipline against public statements against vaccination obligations. Topp did so while wearing a military uniform.
Topp initially chose to get a court martial, but the indictment was retried without the court martial option. The army has now made another turn.
“That was what he first wanted and they robbed him of it, so I’m glad he was able to make his point,” said top lawyer Philip Miller in the Epoch Times. I told the time report.
Mr Miller said it was unclear why the military chose this method and did not know when the trial would take place.
Recently, some changes have been made to the military legal system. Regulations Bill C-77 (2019), which will come into effect on June 20.
These provisions replaced unit-level summary trials with summary trials in the military legal system.
The summary hearing was a non-criminal and non-criminal disciplinary process based on the principles of administrative law, while the summary hearing was based on criminal law.
Trek completion
Top completed his 4,300-kilometer journey on June 30, with more than 1,000 supporters walking behind him to reach the National War Memorial.
Millar pointed out that this gave Topp a lot of bad publicity.
Regardless of why the CAF chose the court martial, the lawyer said, “It is a good opportunity for him to have a judge decide the matter, at least he is the command that created the policy.”
If not disturbing the court martial, Topp could have faced fines and other fines, but now it can be even more serious.
The trial, on the other hand, allows Topp’s defense to present a broader debate and may challenge the policies that Topp was opposed to.
In a previous interview, Miller said policies to prevent soldiers from taking a political position are not bad. “But that’s when we’re talking about war in general.”
“He was talking about being forced to get vaccinated … so I think it was a little different. And I would inevitably challenge the legality of the order, because it’s political. When it is, it is different. The army is not considered a political tool. “
We asked the Ministry of Defense (DND) for comment, but did not respond by the time of publication.
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Noé Charter is a Montreal-based Epoch Times reporter. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret
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