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PORTUGAL: Filed a petition to the parliament to erase the legal entity of the Jehovah's Witness

by EdenOne in

based on legal arguments that revolve around violations of several articles of the portuguese constitution, and of the law of religious freedom, a petition to the portuguese parliament has been set in motion to extinguish the legal entity that represents the jehovah's witness in portugal and remove this community from the national register of recognized religions protected by law.

the petition does not seek to ban the jehovah's witness as a whole in the country.

the petition denounces the institutional policy of shunning former members as a violation of basic human rights and psychological torture, and asks the portuguese legislators and judicial authorities to take action to stop this abuse, and suspend legal recognition to the branch office entity until the policies of shunning are changed.

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Are there are time periods involved?

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

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Does anyone know when the court is expected to publish their decision. I know the US Supreme Court generally release their decisions in a row towards the end of their term.

Four-to-six months.

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

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Your complaint or whatever cause of action you filed is also presented as 100 percent factual. No
That's your side of the story.

Which, as my lawyer said to the Supreme Court, is precisely why we have judges.

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

search

Portion of original trial court transcript - Re: Can one even speak to a DF'd member?

Page 20

1 them they would walk away or ignore him?
2
3 MR GNAM: Right.
4
5 THE COURT: Okay. And if he phoned they -- and they
6 realized it's him they would be expected to hang up?
7
8 MR GNAM: Yes.
9
10 THE COURT: Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'm putting aside --
11 hopefully I'm putting aside somebody is trying to kill me. I need the police. Call the
12 police. I can't do it. They would be expected to respond to that presumably.
13
14 MR GNAM: Of course.
15
16 THE COURT: Yeah. Okay. So the notion therefore of
17 shunning can be pretty dramatic, I would think, for some folks if this happens to be the
18 community of their closest friends at one time. Now, you're essentially -- you're persona
19 non grata. Nobody is -- is permitted to -- really to talk to you. What happens if
20 somebody in the congregation chooses to say, I am going to talk to him? I am going to
21 socialize with you. What -- is there a punishment for them for --
22
23 MR GNAM: The -- the other --
24
25 THE COURT: -- failing to shun him?
26
27 MR. GNAM: In that circumstance likely the elders in the
28 congregation would go up and speak to that person, try and help them understand why the
29 congregation has a disfellowshipping arrangement, and why that arrangement requires
30 them not to -- to have contact with that person.
31
32 THE COURT: Can -- can you tell me that? I mean, I'm not a
33 member of the church, so I haven't either been admitted nor disfellowed. But they would
34 talk to me in this -- and, I mean, presuming they wanted to. Let's say we've got
35 something in general in common. We're talking about the Calgary Flames for heaven's
36 sakes.
37
38 So they would talk to me as a complete and utter stranger not connected to the church.
39 Why is it that they are expected to shun him? He's the one who has demonstrated an
40 inability to live by the church 's tenets, I get --- get that. Why are they, other members of
41 the congregation, expected to shun him? To have nothing to do with him?

Page 21

1
2 MR. GNAM: The hope is -- the -- the -- part of that
3 discipline process that that will help the individual see the seriousness of what they did.
4
5 THE COURT: Oh, I see.
6
7 MR. GNAM: And encourage them to come back to the
8 congregation --
9
10 THE COURT: Okay. Okay.
11
12 MR. GNAM: -- to be repentant.
13
14 THE COURT: So in other words, because that sense of
15 isolation you would realize, Holy cow, this is really serious. And if you didn't understand
16 the seriousness of it before this is hopefully to pass that seriousness on.
17
18 MR. GNAM: Exactly.
19
20 THE COURT: That's the purpose behind it.
21
22 MR. GNAM: Yes.
23
24 THE COURT: Now, a person then who re -- fails to do the
25 shunning, you say will be spoken to. What happens if that person says , Well , thanks very
26 much. I happen to read a different section in the Bible. And that other section or other
27 verse may tell me that God is a merciful God, and that God is a forgiving God. And I
28 prefer to put greater emphasis on that with all due regard to the rest of the tenets of our
29 church.
30
31 What if a person took that sort of approach to the elders when being counselled to
32 continue the shunning? And that person said, well , essentially with respect I'm not going
33 to follow it. Does that person face some form of discipline?
34
35 MR. GNAM: It would depend, My Lord --
36
37 THE COURT: Yeah.
38
39 MR. GNAM: -- in -- in the sense that the -- the elders are not
40 expected to police the relationships between members of the congregation --
41

Page 22

1 THE COURT: No, no, but -- but came to an elder's attention.
2
3 MR. GNAM: -- or their relationship with other people.
4
5 THE COURT: Yeah.
6
7 MR. GNAM: The elders would become more seriously
8 involved in that circumstance. If the person the -- is a member ofthe congregation, and
9 is -- is associating with a disfellowshipped person, does that in a blatant way, and in
10 and in a way that rejects the authority of the congregation and the Bible principles that the
11 Congregation believes in, in terms of the reasons.
12
13 THE COURT: Well, just -- no. But -- but that may be just
14 what that elder is telling him that that's what is. And so, I mean, we all surely don't have
15 such a -- a view of the Biblical teachings that one can't also feel comforted by some other
16 passage which allows you to take a different view.
17
18 So we 've got an -- perhaps an honest disagreement of opinion by -- held by two
19 honourable people, both who otherwise are strong adherents to the -- to the -- to the -- to
20 the faith . Do I infer from where you're trying not to go, but I think I'm trying to push
21 you there, that if that person then continues to ignore the shunning they will be
22 disciplined in some fashion?
23
24 MR. GNAM: That -- that is possible, My Lord.
25
26 THE COURT: What would be the nature of the punishment?
27 Disfellowshipment as well?
28
29 MR. GNAM: It -- it would be exactly the same process that
30 we 're describing --
31
32 THE COURT: M-hm.
33
34 MR. GNAM: -- and what happened with Mr. Wall.
35
36 THE COURT: M-hm.
37
38 MR. GNAM: Elders would meet with -- two elders would
39 meet with the individual, try and encourage them, give them scriptural reasons --
40
41 THE COURT: Right.

Page 23

1
2 MR. GNAM: -- why that association is not correct according
3 to Bible standards. If the person were to persist then they would be asked to appear
4 before a judicial committee, and the three elders would then meet with the individual and
5 try and reason with them. And if they persisted -- they said, You know, that's -- exactly
6 just to use your --
7
8 THE COURT: Yeah.
9
10 MR. GNAM: -- your example --
11
12 THE COURT: Yeah.
13
14 MR. GNAM: That's your bel -- that's what you believe.
15 That's you -- how you interpret the scriptures. I interpret them diff -- differently. Then
16 the congregation elders might well choose to disfellowship that person as well.
17
18 THE COURT: M-hm. And again it would fall to the judicial
19 committee to do that? Who--
20
21 MR. GNAM: To make that decision.
22
23 THE COURT: Okay. The church is essentially -- and each
24 congregation is it, to use a -- is it run by the elders? Each congregation? They're the
25 ones who are kind of in -- in charge?
26
27 MR. GNAM: Take -- the elders take the lead.
28
29 THE COURT: Yeah.
30
31 MR. GNAM: They -- in the congregations of Jehovah's
- 32 Witnesses the elders are viewed as shepherds not leaders, in the sense that each person is
33 responsible for their own faith .
34
35 THE COURT: Right.
36
--: 37 MR. GNAM: And the elders have a spe -- a specific
38 shepherding responsibility to encourage, and to comfort, and to include --
39
40 THE COURT: Yeah.
41

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

search

I thought Judicial™ matters were supposed to be confidential??? Why is he recounting the reasons for Mr. Wall's expulsion from the Congregation™?

You are very correct.

In all other recorded cases, the elders strenuously object to revealing ANYTHING from a JC, even in molestation cases.

For example, in Jones v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2007 BCSC 1455 (CanLII), http://canlii.ca/t/1t2pg - the elder said: "My duty under canon law to keep the above religious communication confidential continues. No matter what the outcome of the police investigation, my conscientious responsibility to preserve confidential religious communications continues"

In my case, the opposite has been done.

As I have said, the affidavits of the two elders are being presented as being 100% factual, to which I not only strongly disagree, there is incontrovertible third-party evidence to the contrary.

If I win at SCC, this will only be magnified upon return to trial court.

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

search

Mr. Gnam told the 9 justices that doing business with a df individual is a personal decision (today).

He also said that that person would be talked to by the elders.

I will later post a portion of the trial court transcript about the expectation and consequences of the other members.

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

search

how could he possibly turn to Caesar for justice.

Should Paul not have appealed to Caesar against his "brothers" (Acts 23:6)?

It is an established Biblical precedent.

106

Does anyone have info on the guy that sued Jw in Canada

by poopie in

jw
friends

because he was shunned by his customers?.

search

But one could still ask if any elders were clients or if the elders who sat on his judicial case were clients of his and if the disfellowshipping announcement was made by a client and if so then was Mr Wall given notice that his business would be affected.

It is very ironic that you post this. In Appeal Court, I applied to have additional evidence submitted. Part of that evidence was a list including some of my JW clients, MANY of whom were elders and MS's.

The Appeal Court declared that they did not need to consider admitting the additional evidence, due to the fact that they dismissed Highwood's appeal.

The greatest irony is that the Judicial Committee chairman, Vaughn Lee, was one of my clients (he solicited me, as had all of my JW clients), and was essentially arguing in court that I should not have had any JW clients.

You can draw your own conclusions.

(He was also the one that made the announcement)

57