Were they not inexorably entwined in the mock trial of Maclean’s magazine and the attempt to limit legal expression of opinion in this country, the four legal amigos seated at the B. C. Human Rights Tribunal’s table of complaints would almost be pitiable. Not pitiful.

Faisal Joseph is a former Crown counsel now in private practice, and the lawyer in charge of bringing two human rights complaints against Maclean’s, “on behalf of all the Muslim residents of the province of British Columbia.”

That alone is ludicrous. Presumptuous. And false. The province’s Muslim community was not canvassed prior to the proceedings. It did not endorse Mr. Joseph’s mission. Indeed, aside from Mr. Joseph and his legal assistants, only a few Muslims have attended the hearing, taking place this week inside a B. C. provincial courtroom.

But proof has no relevance at this Tribunal; one may claim anything.

The only named complainants are two Muslim men: Canadian Islamic Congress president Mohamed Elmasry, of Waterloo, Ont., and Naiyer Habib, recently of Saskatchewan, and now of B. C.. Only Mr. Habib has bothered to show up, but he refuses to discuss with reporters the hearing and its implications. So there he sits, behind the counsel table, alone in his thoughts.

At least Mr. Joseph has some company on the front line: Three young law students, fresh from Osgoode Hall in Toronto, all of them eager to assist in the effort to prosecute Maclean’s magazine in B. C. for its publication almost two years ago of a 4,800-word book excerpt, allegedly hateful and Islamophobic, written by acerbic journalist Mark Steyn.

Read on.