There are things in the life and work of a fan advocate that you think you would never experience. What haven’t I seen in courtrooms? Everything was there, from unconscious witnesses to jurors who fell asleep. But recently there was something special from the audience. What had happened? The client, a football fan, was facing charges for throwing a bottle at police officers. The bottle was far from hitting an officer. Nevertheless, the prosecution spoke of Section 114 of the Criminal Code (“Assault on law enforcement officers”)) with a minimum sentence of three months.
As always, the devil lies in the details. The client was a solid man in his mid-fifties who had never been in trouble with the law and who had committed his crime through a knee-jerk reaction. Furthermore, the matter was more than three and a half years ago and the client was not responsible for the delay in the proceedings. He confessed and apologized to the officials at the main hearing, who also accepted his apology. He had also already served a stadium ban that had since been issued. From my point of view, everything was clear enough to discuss discontinuing the proceedings.
So I sought legal advice and found that the young judge was not in favor of discontinuing the proceedings. The public prosecutor’s office, in turn, was represented by a trainee lawyer. A heated discussion broke out between him and me as to whether the proceedings could be stopped. What then surprised me was an energetic voice from the audience that wanted to make it clear to me that there would be no dismissal by the public prosecutor. When I asked who the eager heckler was, she introduced herself as the trainee teacher’s trainer. I made it clear to the presiding judge that I was not used to discussing procedural issues with people in the audience. I had never experienced anything like that. The lady didn’t want to see an end. Apparently she was very annoyed that I wasn’t willing to discuss things with the audience. Ultimately there was no dismissal and the client was sentenced to probation.
An outcome that was completely unacceptable and, in my view, does not correspond to the factual and legal situation. That’s why I filed an appeal and will also report here about the outcome in the higher instance. But who I definitely won’t be discussing on this occasion is the audience.
“Sport free!” from the fan advocate.
