Farhat's weblog: August 2010

Just a few...

hours ago I had Call from Gmail enabled, after logging in having read about it on Engadget, but now I don't. I even made a call from my computer to the home phone, and it was working.

Last week...

...I mentioned my experience at the provincial courthouse related to a red-light camera offence. This week on Monday I returned to the courthouse, intending to plead guilty with a submission as to the reduction of the outrageous fine. I went to one of the counters, presented the letter to the clerk, and was told to wait on some benches on the side. If you are a first-timer in these issues, the following happens. You wait on the benches, not knowing what is supposed to happen. Then suddenly a door opens, and a name is called. The person goes inside, and emerges some time later, usually happy. When it was my turn, I went in, and from what I could understand, it was a separate courtroom for pleading guilty, which also means that you are foregoing your right to a trial. The kind looking person on the other side of the table, whom I presume is a justice, asks you to sit down, and informs you that the conversation will be recorded. You tell your name, and then he reads you the charge. Then he asks you whether you plead guilty or not guilty. If you plead guilty, which I did, you are informed that you are foregoing the right to a trial. Then you are asked to make any submission. Mine was simple, and I attributed my crossing of the red light to an error of judgement, and not a deliberate act. I also informed the justice that I would like a reduction in the fine since I am a student, and hence the amount of fine is too hefty for me to pay, plus crossing the red light wasn't deliberate. The kind justice listened to this, asked me what discipline I am a student in, whether I am about to finish, and then after this informed me that he is reducing the fine to Cdn 75 plus the court fees. I thanked him, and left the room, and paid the fine, which came to Cdn 95 with the court fees. Still outrageous, but much less than Cdn 325 which is what is carried by this offence.

On the whole, this turned out to be a pleasant, though anti-dramatic experience, much different to what I was expecting. Apparently what I had experienced last week was what happens for cases that go to trials.

The graphic...

...shown here using satellite pictures shows the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan.

For those...

...old enough to remember the cricket of the time when Imran Khan and Javed Miandad used to play for Pakistan, this article should be interesting to read.

In all the...

...years that I have been driving, I haven't run many red lights. And never a red light with a camera, until a few weeks ago. Thus the letter that came last week with photos showing the car crossing the light that had been red for an eternity of 1.1 seconds. This sets you back a whopping Cdn 325!!! There are 3 options, the last one of which is to settle out of court by payment of fine. The first 2 are to plead not guilty, and to plead guilty with a submission as to the amount of fine. For both of these options one had to visit the Ontario Court of Justice, which is not far from where we live in Mississauga.

Intending to plead guilty and to ask for a reduction of the fine, which I think is outrageous, today I went to the courthouse, but was informed that the official date for the serving of the notice that I have received in the mail starts today, and the court doesn't have the papers related to this case yet. Much better would be to come next Monday. So this part has been postponed. Then I decided to linger in the courthouse to see what happens there, and went into a court room a few minutes before 9 am. Apparently the proceedings are supposed to start at 9 am. There were many people lingering about, whom I later identified as a prosecutor, a few lawyers or agents of the common man, 5 or 6 police officers, and either affectees or just curious onlookers like me. However, there was no sign of the judge, or the justice, as the person is called. I, along with the others, kept waiting for more than 35 minutes, at which time a justice walked in from a neighboring court room, to fill in for the one who was absent due to sickness, and the proceedings started.

The justice was addressed to as Your Lordship, and his lordship was pretty swift in dispensing justice, probably because the cases were very simple, related to traffic offences, and also because the prosecutor had already settled the matter with the common man through themselves or their lawyers/agents, and the issue just had to be formalized through his lordship. There was one case of someone running a red light and having been caught on camera, and the agent for the person plead guilty on his behalf, and the prosecutor described the matter as having been settled with a fine of Cdn 150. I think this is still outrageous, but on a scale less than Cdn 325.

I will be going back to court next Monday, though I don't know whether I'll be done that day, or whether some other day and time will be set for that. There were one or two adjournments today, and the dates set were a few months later.

An interesting experience on the whole.

Probably its...

...difficult to know when its time to leave gracefully, rather than being kicked out.
Capello ends Beckham's England career

The month of...

...Ramadan, a time of intense spiritual experience, is again here. A whole year has passed so quickly. Happy Ramadan to all.

Apparently it is...

...being learnt that the fasting month Ramadan is about to start, and the German TV channel RTL 2 is going to blend the fasting start and end times on screen. However, the programs running during these times might not be too compatible with the spiritual needs of the viewers (read for the programs' names towards the end of the article).

For those...

...who might be friends with me on Facebook and who visit this blog, I have linked on my Facebook profile to a note from a friend of mine who has written about his experience being trapped in the north of Pakistan due to floods. I found his experiences very moving, specially how the locals were willing to help others despite facing hardships themselves. Given that all news out of Pakistan is bad news now, things like these mean a lot.