"Everyone in Canada has a constitutional right of access to Her Majesty’s courts as a litigant or as a witness. The punishment impending here (and imposed against the other litigants in the parallel proceedings) is for doing just that. Public policy dictates weighing that when considering the balance of convenience."
These are the words of three Alberta justices, as part of a ruling that the Canadian Soccer Association is not entitled to suspend three Alberta soccer officials who took their fight to reform the Alberta Soccer Association to court.
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World soccer, in general, discourages legal entanglement. That's why the CSA is trying to suspend these folks in the first place. The judges openly dismiss this, essentially telling Canada's national governing body of soccer to take -- what would the proper legalese term be for it? -- a running jump.
Here's the full judgment:
This would be a really good time to hear from CSA president Dominic Maestracci, don't you think?
Onward!