Privacy Rights in the Digital Age - Frances Borgmann
It is widely appreciated that law must be interpreted within its social context. Currently, our social context is defined by the Digital Age in which large amounts of information can be exchanged across a wide audience through various technologies. Though the impact of the Digital Age is wide in scope, the following analysis is limited to how it has reshaped individual privacy within Canada’s criminal law context. Specifically, the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v Jarv
The Court of Public Opinion - Sandra Barkho
One of the fundamental rights that Canadians have in a democratic society is the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a fair trial. Section 11(d) of the Charter states that “any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal. This right is particularly important in the context of criminal law because individuals’ liberties are at ris
Protecting Prosecutors Against Officers' Revenge - Cole McClelland
The recent decision of Ontario (Attorney General) v. Clark (“Clark”) creates an interesting conversation around the relationship between the Crown and officers of the law. Specifically, Clark raises a question of whether the actions of Crown prosecutors can open them to civil liability to police officers. Curiously, this is a novel legal question. Two parties who traditionally exist cooperatively in the administration of justice finding themselves at odds over criminal procee
The Modern-Day Panopticon: Privacy Under Surveillance - Laura Ayres
Introduction Have you ever seen memes making jest of FBI agents reacting to someone’s online behaviour? Funny, right? But if you think a little deeper about the meaning behind these memes, it can get a little scary. Many people today have come to the point where the idea of their privacy being infringed by state actors has become peak humour rather than a feature of a dystopian novel. The idea of privacy being invaded in the name of security has been accepted as a given; ther
Inferring Intent with After-the-Fact Conduct - Yan Ma
After-the-fact conduct evidence (“ACE”), also known as post-offence conduct evidence, is circumstantial evidence that “encompasses what the accused both said and did after the offence charged in the indictment was allegedly committed.”[1] The admissibility of ACE to assess intent has historically been controversial.[2] In R v Calnen (“Calnen”),[3] the Supreme Court of Canada (“the Court”) resolved this controversy by establishing a central approach to assessing intent with AC