Abortion protester loses bid to defy injunction

OTTAWA— A dogged anti-abortion protester has lost another skirmish in her legal battle to defy an 18-year-old injunction against picketing Toronto abortion clinics.

But Linda Gibbons continues her two-decade fight even behind bars where she is now “ministering to pregnant women” in jail while she awaits trial on other charges of violating the order.

In an 8-1 decision Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld two lower-court rulings that underlined the Crown’s power to enforce injunctions using criminal charges.

It means that Gibbons, 63, could face a new criminal trial for breaching a civil injunction issued in 1994. That order was meant to keep Gibbons and17 others at least18 metres away from clinics in the wake of a wave of tension-filled protests and the firebombing of Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s Toronto clinic in the years after the country’s top court struck down Canada’s abortion law. In fact, Gibbons has spent nearly nine years in total in jail over the two decades on about a dozen different charges of disobeying the injunction or probation orders.

In case that goes back to ’94, Supreme Court affirms power of Crown to enforce injunction using criminal charges

And despite Friday’s loss, Gibbons was “very positive,” said John Bullsza, another protester named in the injunction who spoke to her after the ruling. Bullsza said she “is strong because of her faith.” He added that her fight against the injunction may be a “baton” he or others will now take up. They have vocally opposed the lack of abortion legislation in Canada. After the Supreme Court struck down the abortion law in Canada in 1988, a new law was drafted by the Mulroney government, but stalled and failed on a tie in the Senate. Since then the pro- and anti- forces have clashed in the court of public opinion, but no government has tried to redraft a law restricting abortion. “I think the clear message in the ruling is that someone who breaches an injunction can be criminally convicted for that,” said Gibbons’ lawyer Daniel Santoro. “However the door is still open for me to challenge the prosecution of this 18year-old temporary order as an abuse of process.” Justice Marie Deschamps, writing for the majority, found that Ontario civil court rules allowing contempt proceedings to enforce an injunction can be enforced by the criminal code for disobeying court orders, and so in Gibbons’ case, a criminal charge may proceed. The ruling is a very technical legal judgment that does not explore the questions around abortion or peaceful protest.