Ontario judge rules Crown must pay legal fees of Indigenous men in land dispute

An Ontario judge has taken the unusual step of ruling that the Crown must pay the legal fees of the defendants in a criminal case after the government withdrew nearly eight-year-old charges against Indigenous men who were logging on Crown land.

In a strongly worded decision, Justice Romuald Kwolek said Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources knew from the time charges were filed in 2008 against the Chief of the Batchewana First Nation and three other men that aboriginal issues were at stake and should not have waited until May, 2016, to ask that the charges be withdrawn in favour of a negotiated resolution.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-judge-rules-crown-must-pay-legal-fees-of-indigenous-men-in-land-dispute/article34156409/