The lawyer for a Windsor-area pastor says her client was caught off-guard by a recent court summons.
As you've heard on AM800 News, Harvest Bible Church Pastor Aaron Rock posted on social media that police served him with a summons for contravention of public orders under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act.
Lawyer, Lisa Bildy says her client is scheduled for a court appearance at the end of March.
"Because he wasn't actually, as I understand it, there to attend the protest," she says. "He was observing from afar and then went over to speak with somebody he knew and then left again but perhaps he is a familiar face he ended up getting a ticket for it, so that's my understanding anyway."
Bildy says their defense will aim to "put the government to the test."
"Under the constitution people have a right to peaceful assembly, justifying that the restrictions are proportional and not overboard and minimal impairment of our constitutional freedoms," she says. "So, we are defending a number of these tickets."
Back in December, Windsor police charged Rock in relation to an indoor service held at Harvest Bible Church and Bildy says her client has still not formally received that ticket.
"I can't speak for his spirits and I'm sure he feels frustrated that he has to face some court proceedings over normal human interaction, but there will be many of us in that boat before this is done."
Bildy, who works for the Calgary, Alberta based Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, says her client wants to fight the charges and she believes the restrictions on gathering limits goes against the right to peaceful assembly.