Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
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Esgenoopetetitj, New Brunswick - In a decision last week, Judge McCarroll of the New Brunswick Provincial Court found the Canada Coordinator of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Doug Pritchard, not guilty of "obstructing a fisheries officer" because he was "acting as a human rights observer" when accompanying Mi'kmaq people to their lobster fishery on June 12, 2000.

In the March 19, 2001 ruling, Judge McCarroll disagreed with the government's assertion that Pritchard's photographing of the actions of Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) officers, as they confiscated traps set under the Esgenoopetitj First Nation's Fisheries Act, constituted an obstruction of the officers. The judge underlined that Pritchard was a human rights observer in the incident described by DFO officers. Pritchard had been aboard a Mi'kmaq boat which approached DFO vessels in the waters adjacent to this Mi'kmaq community.

"By this decision Judge McCarroll recognized that there is an underlying issue of human rights abuse in the DFO actions last year," commented Pritchard after the ruling. "A Canadian court has acknowledged that there is a role for human rights observers in the ongoing conflict between Canada and the Mi'kmaq Nation over fishing."

CPT maintained a team in Esgenoopetitj during the 2000 lobster fishing season.