Crown asks New Brunswick judge to stay charges against Indigenous lobster fisherman – Global News
February 15, 2024
A judge in northern New Brunswick granted a stay of proceedings Thursday in the trial of an Indigenous lobster fisherman who recently launched a constitutional challenge aimed at asserting Indigenous and treaty rights.
Cody Caplin, a member of the Eel River Bar First Nation, was fishing for lobster in the Bay of Chaleur in September 2018 when he was arrested by federal fisheries officers. He was charged a year later with 10 offences, including trapping lobster out of season.
When his provincial court trial in Campbellton, N.B., began in November of last year, Caplin cited the Peace and Friendship Treaties signed by the Mi’kmaq and the British Crown in the 1700s, which recognize the Indigenous right to hunt and fish for personal subsistence.
As the case resumed Thursday after a lengthy adjournment, a Crown lawyer told the judge that the federal attorney general had ordered a stay of proceedings because the prosecutor handling the case was ill, leading to excessive delays.
Read More: https://globalnews.ca/news/10297799/nb-indigenous-fisherman-charges-stayed/
