CRIME BILL REACTION

Sweeping changes to Canada’s criminal justice system have been introduced to the House in omnibus crime bill. Read Story

“It is difficult to track the Tory government’s fascination, or more correctly, delusion, with ‘phantom’ crime, crime which is not reported, but which nonetheless prompts the government to build more jails,” says Toronto criminal lawyer Christopher Hicks, a partner at Hicks Adams LLP. “If it is not reported, and thus cannot be prosecuted, nor can anyone be convicted and sentenced, why build more jails?”

He adds: “More importantly, why remove judicial discretion in sentencing when these ‘phantoms’ cannot be apprehended, let alone sentenced?”

Hicks adds that the new legislation also, “apparently, provides that before a jury trial commences, a judge who is not the trial judge can hear and decide the pre-trial motions. This is contrary to the law from the Supreme Court of Canada, which in R v Litchfield, expressly disapproved of this practice, which on appeal would lead to “collateral attacks” on the decisions of the judge presiding only over the pe-trial motions, and not the trial.

“It is difficult to see any advantage in assigning two judges to one matter,” Hicks observed.