Discretion and Discrimination - Admission in Apprehension Hearings for Child Protection Matters
In 2022, Indigenous people accounted for 7.7% of children under 15 years old; however, they represented 53.8% of children in foster care.”Additionally, over 50% of Indigenous children in foster care lived with non-Indigenous parents. These statistics raise enormous concern, as even with the TRC Calls to Action and Bill C-92, Indigenous children continue to be taken away from their families and culture at an alarming rate.
The Public’s Confidence in the Judicial System and the Criminal Justice System: R v Young; R v Caeser
Hearsay may be broken into a two-part definition. Hearsay refers to “(1) an out-of-court statement (2) that is admitted for the truth of its contents.” With respect to hearsay, unless an exception to the hearsay rule is applicable to the hearsay evidence in question, the hearsay evidence is presumptively inadmissible. Hearsay was a major issue in the fascinating case of R v Young—detailed and discussed in the following section.
R v SS – Hearsay: The Consequence of a Careless Analysis
In R v SS, the admissibility of a young victim’s statement was tested. This blog will balance the decisions of the trial judge and the Ontario Court of Appeal (the “ONCA”) to further understand the principled exception to the hearsay rule and the consequences when it is inadequately applied.
