Quebec Court of Appeal hearing for Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois delayed to fall

QUEBEC – Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, one of the most visible figures in Quebec’s tuition dispute last year, will not get a hearing until the fall in Quebec Court of Appeal on his appeals of a 120-hour community service sentence and his contempt of court conviction, his lawyer said Tuesday.

Giuseppe Sciortino, representing Nadeau-Dubois, presented procedural arguments Tuesday in the Court of Appeal, which adjourned the case without setting a hearing date.

Pending the appeal, the sentence imposed on Nadeau-Dubois will not be executed and he may travel outside Canada, as he did recently to France where he explained the case of Quebec students.

Nadeau-Dubois, who had a history course Tuesday, Sciortino said, did not attend the hearing.

But Jean-François Morasse, who made the contempt of court complaint against Nadeau-Dubois, was in court with his lawyer Maxime Roy.

Sciortino is contesting the conviction on points of law, that the injunction was not addressed to Nadeau-Dubois, and will argue the student spokesperson was not advising defiance of the court order in an RDI interview that Roy introduced in evidence.

“I believe that it is completely legitimate for students to take measures to respect the democratic choice they made in going on strike,” Nadeau-Dubois said in the television interview.

Sciortino will also contest the procedure of having the same judge who granted an injunction imposing a contempt conviction, saying another judge should weigh such cases.

Morasse, who won a court injunction allowing to him to return to his class at Quebec City’s Université Laval, said that as a result of Nadeau-Dubois’ declaration, students blocked access to his applied arts course.