Rebuttable Presumption of Vehicle Care and Control Justified
The Criminal Code’s (“the Code”) provisions for the offense of care or control of a motor vehicle while impaired provide a prototypical example of a societal objective justifying the restriction of a right guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter"). Drunk driving is recognized by Canadian society and Canadian courts as a social menace to be eradicated.
Sentencing for the Protection of Indigenous Women and Girls
It is now widely known that our country has a long and woeful history of discrimination and systemic injustice perpetrated against its Indigenous population, such that it has led to a disproportionate over-representation of Indigenous people in the criminal justice system. This is particularly true for the prairie provinces. Despite Canada’s “seeming inability, or neglect, to meaningfully repair the damage with a sense of urgency,”
Caution Required As Curative Proviso Restores Convictions
By amending the Criminal Code (“the Code”) to add section 686(1)(b)(iv), Parliament provided the appeal courts the ability to remedy errors in the procedure of a criminal trial, provided such an error was generated by the trial court and the accused had not suffered prejudice as a consequence of that error.1 In doing so, the legislature sent the higher courts of Canada a clear message to not allow justice to fail as a consequence of unimportant trial errors.
The Evidentiary Burden of a Crime of Passion
The following is an analysis of a motion made to the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench (“the MBQB”) in R v Assi (“Assi”), which challenged the constitutionality of a limitation placed on the defense of provocation. The applicant, that is, the accused (“the accused”) argued that the issue of the constitutionality of the amendment of section 232 of the Criminal Code (“the Code”) should be decided prior to the commencement of the trial.
Denigrating Advice of Counsel
Section 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter") gives the right to counsel, which includes the right to contact counsel and obtain legal advice but also requires that the police respect the advice given by counsel to an accused. In the Provincial Court of Manitoba’s (“the MBPC”) 2021 decision of R v Soriano (“Soriano"), the accused’s rights under section 10(b) of the Charter were allegedly infringed by a police detective who was determined to get
