Robson Crim Legal Blog

Adam Strombergsson-de Nora and Rebecca Jaremko-Bromwich The provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec recently deployed section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to curtail labour rights and religious freedoms in ways that have surprised Canadian voters and lawyers alike. Criminal lawyers, with their particularly acute sensitivity to state overreach when Charter rights are concerned, have broadly expressed concerns about this type of state action. A popula

The continued dichotomy of an individual’s Charter rights versus the interest of protecting society is an area of much debate and continuous scrutiny. There are a multitude of cases where the decision of whether admitting evidence that was obtained in such a way that may be inconsistent with the accused’s Charter right should be done, even if there is an apparent conflict with society’s interests. Analysis by the Courts when Charter rights are Infringed In R. v. Grant the Sup

This blog will address whether the standard of reasonable suspicion is an appropriate standard. The test relies on the possibility of criminality, and not the probability of criminality. The reasonable suspicion standard facilitates the ability of police officers to stop, detain, and search individuals without the probability of criminal activity, which could validate racial profiling. I will argue that the reasonable suspicion standard allows police officers to legitimize th

Background Section 34 of the Criminal Code, the section covering “Defence of a person,” found itself undergoing major changes in 2013.[1] Justice Martin, in her judgement from R v Khill, explains that Parliament amended this section in an attempt to simplify and unify the defence of self-defence, as well as to make an attempt at “broadening the scope and application of self-defence and employing a multifactorial reasonableness assessment.”[2] Specific words were no longer use

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