A Yukon Supreme Court judge has quashed another judge’s ruling and found a religious man unfit to stand trial.

On Wednesday, Justice Thomas Heeney overturned territorial court Judge Heino Lilles’ unique ruling that Raymond Hureau was not fit to stand trial if unrepresented by a lawyer but, if represented, was fit.

Hureau, 74, is charged with causing disturbances at a church service and in a grocery store parking lot earlier this year in Whitehorse.

The Crown had filed an application for judicial review, suggesting that Lilles lacked jurisdiction.

The difficulty with the decision, Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie said in court earlier this month, is the potential it creates for the case to, essentially, go in circles.

Hureau has struggled to find a lawyer who believes in God and shares his views, he said in court earlier this month.

The court appointed local lawyer Bob Dick to represent Hureau during the mental fitness hearing in July and the Crown’s appeal this week.

But if Hureau is mentally fit when represented by a lawyer, as per Lilles’ decision, he’s able to fire his lawyer.

Dick opposed the Crown’s application.

Hureau maintains he has been fit all along.

Heeney’s decision sends the case to the Yukon Review Board.

The board must hold a disposition hearing within 45 days to further assess Hureau’s fitness to stand trial.

If the board finds an accused is fit, the matter returns to court for a fitness hearing.

But if the board finds an accused unfit, it must hold a hearing at least once every 12 months to reassess his or her ability to stand trial.

“If an accused has been found unfit to stand trial, they must be returned to court no later than two years after the verdict (one year for young offenders) to decide if there is still enough evidence to put the accused on trial,” states the Department of Justice website.

“If the court is satisfied there is still enough evidence, the accused remains under the jurisdiction of the review board. If there is no longer enough evidence, the court will acquit the accused.”

Unless the department comes up with an alternate option, such as a stay in a psychiatric facility, Hureau will remain in jail while the board conducts its assessment.

“This procedure is to make sure a person has a fair trial,” Dick said in an interview this morning.

“And if he’s not competent to do it, then they try to get him to the point where he is competent. If he becomes fit to stand trial, then they have a trial.

“The whole point is that somebody doesn’t go to trial who’s unfit and gets a sentence that’s disproportionate to his crime.

“But (Hureau) has already had the punishment,” Dick said.

“He’s had more time in jail than he would’ve no matter how unfair a trial would have been. He never would have gotten this much punishment.”

Hureau has been in custody for about three months. He does not have a criminal record.

The first incident he is charged in connection with occurred at Sacred Heart Cathedral last March. It’s alleged he wilfully disturbed a mass there.

Hureau was arrested and was released on an undertaking. Two months later, he was arrested and charged after allegedly causing a disturbance in a Super A parking lot.

At the July mental fitness hearing, Dr. Shabehram Lohrasbe testified about Hureau’s mental state after meeting with him at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre and interviewing Hureau’s wife and daughter.

Hureau worked for 46 years in the mining industry, for a time as chief mine geologist and consulting geologist. He is educated and intelligent, tests have shown.

He is a very religious Catholic man, with strong, conservative opinions about abortion, gay marriage and feminism.

“He considers it his Christian duty to challenge the recent modernization and secularization of the Catholic Church in every way possible, by writing letters to public bodies, government agencies, the Church and the RCMP and by speaking out and verbally challenging individuals in positions of authority,” the court document states.

Yet Hureau’s family maintains he “does not have a criminal bone in his body, but he’s just gotten out of touch with reality.”

His wife and daughter point to a decline in his mental state dating back five years when he was gassed at a work site and lost consciousness for 15 minutes.

Tests have shown abnormal brain activity in his temporal lobe area, which could be a result of the workplace accident.

Lohrasbe concluded that although Hureau shows no evidence of psychosis, there is “little doubt that his perceptions are grossly distorted such that there is a broad mismatch between consensual social reality and how Mr. Hureau perceives that reality....”

Further, the doctor found Hureau “does not have the emotional stability (or) the behavioural self-control required to co-operate with his counsel or with the Court process in general.”

The Criminal Code of Canada defines being “unfit to stand trial” as being unable, due to mental disorder, to conduct a defence, or to instruct counsel to do so, at any stage of the proceedings before a verdict is given.

According to the code, when the court has “reasonable grounds” to believe an accused is unfit to stand trial and he or she is not represented by a lawyer, the court can order that the accused be represented by one.