Private Property, Protest Rights, and Injunctions – BCCLA

September 12, 2024

Vancouver Island University (VIU) dismantled the Palestinian Solidarity Encampment – occupied by some of its students for over 100 days – after the BC Supreme Court granted the university an injunction based on trespass to property. The BCCLA intervened in the injunction hearing.

At the time of the hearing, we posted a thread on X outlining our position, and it caused a bit of a stir. As is our usual practice, we didn’t reply to the comments. However, Leonid Sirota later moved the discussion from X to his blog Double Aspect, and we thought it would be prudent to clear up some misunderstandings (although I’d respectfully suggest that reading our submissions would serve the same purpose).

Mr. Sirota, along with other online commentators, seems to have the impression that the BCCLA doesn’t believe that governments should respect property rights. Or maybe even that property rights somehow aren’t real or legitimate. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, we used the phrase “claiming to own property” in our thread, but this was not to suggest that VIU’s claim to ownership was illegitimate, or that property claims in general should be ignored. Rather, we were simply describing the context where a private actor comes to court making a claim to property rights and asking for the court to enforce them.

Read More: https://bccla.org/2024/09/private-property-protest-rights-and-injunctions/