In light of this..

Canada tokes at 4 times world average: UN

... isn't it about time that we looked at pot as having a broad acceptance in society and take the necessary steps to decriminalize its usage? 16.8% of Canadians admit to using... so if were to throw in another 5% who simply do not admit ( and i expect that this is low) we have as many people smoking pot as tobacco. If the cops were to charge them all we would have some 6 million tied up in the court system. That would cause quite the backlog.

Free Speech to criticize our federal politicians was removed by the Canadian Liberal Party and the Supreme Court of Canada upheld it ... not so much in the good old USA:

Justice Scalia began his concurrence by writing:

"A Moroccan cartoonist once defended his criticism of the Moroccan monarch (lese majesteé being a serious crime in Morocco) as follows: ‘I'm not a revolutionary, I'm just defending freedom of speech . . . I never said we had to change the king -- no, no, no, no! But I said that some things the king is doing, I do not like. Is that a crime?'

"Well, in the United States (making due allowance for the fact that we have elected representatives instead of a king) it is a crime, at least if the speaker is a union or a corporation (including not-for-profit public-interest corporations) and if the representative is identified by name within a certain period before a primary or congressional election in which he is running."

Ouch.

I agree ... Ouch.

Of course the  Supreme Court of the United States need not look so far a Moroco, Canada is right next door. We made speech by individuals illegal for the full run of a Federal election campaign. Worse, the Supreme Court of Canada said that the law was a necessary infringement to our freedom of expression, thus turning our freedom of expression into a privilege and not a right. However, as with McCain Feingold in the USA, the Canadian Election Spending Legislation probably will not hold up to judicial scrutiny once someone is actually charged under the act.

(Via Instapundit ... cross-posted at The London Fog)

.. I however admire a judge doing what is right. The National Post reports that the Crown has been ordered to pay legal costs for those arrested in the gang sweep last week that apparently destroyed the Driftwood Crips. While the arrests may have been in order they took place on June 13th. They should have been able to get bail hearings in 3 days. it is fundamental in this country that the detained get to appear before a judge without delay so that their cntinued detention may be justified.  The Crown has not done so. If i was the crown I would be hoping that the police did not get any confessions or admissions during this time of whta may be construed as illegal dentention.

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney-General has been ordered to pay a total of $27,000 in legal costs to nine men arrested in the Project Kryptic raids because of a failure to hold timely bail hearings.

It is rare for the Crown to be ordered to pay costs in a criminal proceeding, but Superior Court Justice Ian Nordheimer issued a sharply worded ruling yesterday and indicated he would not allow basic rights to be violated because a large number of people were arrested at once.

The judge also suggested he would consider further measures, such as the release of the defendants, if they do not receive bail hearings by July 3.

"What has occurred to date in this case is improper and unacceptable," Judge Nordheimer said.

The nine men, who face a number of drugs and weapons charges and some of whom are alleged to be part of the Driftwood Crips street gang, were among the nearly 100 people taken into custody by Toronto police on June 13.

In another isolated incident, the police have another concern with the raid:

Cop tip-off alleged:Possibility officer warned family about raid 'could shatter the foundations of trust on the force'

I just finished examinations for discovery of a Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) auditor (I was on my best behaviour). My client had a lot of income attributed to him for tax purposes, the evidence of which is almost nil. What was most interesting is CRA attributing to my client the money to pay taxes in the total income. In other words, if CRA says that you have $50,000 in hidden income, they say that you must pay taxes on the income and they increase the amount of the income by the taxes you should have paid and readjust the tax figure upward. Or at least that's what I think they did because the auditor, to his credit, honestly stated that she could not tell me the logic of the policy or the calculator, simply that it was the policy of CRA.

Also interesting was the requirement to show a negative. Say my client does not smoke or drink but Statistics Canada says that the average Canadian spends a certain amount on tobacco and alcohol, the CRA attributes the Stats Canada amount to my client as expenditures which require the income to make the purchase. How my client can show no receipts for no cigarette purchases from no store is hard to understand, but what the hell. The same goes for life insurance. My client does not have life insurance but has an income amount attributed based on the Stats Canada numbers. You cannot show a contract that does not exist.

It was an eye-opener.

 I think I should be able to get a decent result in this particular case despite the reverse onus that is almost impossible to meet  simply becayuse the onus is almost impossible to meet.

(crosspost at The London Fog)

The trial of a Newfoundland Doctor for trafficing in narcotics and sexual assault, has had a second mistrial over jury related incidents. The first mistrial came about when 4 jurors & 2 alternate jurors came to the judge with reasons why they could not serve:

A Newfoundland Supreme Court judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in a closely monitored case involving narcotics.

Justice James Adams made the decision Wednesday in the trial of St. John's physician Sean Buckingham over concerns that proceeding further with the case — in which four jurors and two alternates were excused — may trigger an appeal

Before new jurors could be selected, Adams said a valid argument could be made at a higher court about the detrimental impact of removing so many original jurors and their alternates.

Buckingham is being tried on 23 charges involving sexual assault and drug trafficking. Police say he was illegally dispensing prescription drugs, including the powerful narcotic OxyContin, in return for sex.

The second mistrial has to do with the validity of the jurors list:

Justice William Adams declared a mistrial for Sean Buckingham, a St. John's physician facing 23 charges of trafficking and sexual assault, when his lawyer, Randy Piercey, argued that the local jurors list is woefully out of date.

"I suppose the central issue was that no one under the age of 28 could sit on a jury in Newfoundland, because of the way the jury system was working," Piercey said.

The list of potential jurors has not been updated since 1999, and is based on data collected by the motor vehicle registration system.

Adams said he found it breathtaking that the sheriff's office had the means to update the list, but did not. The list does not include, for instance, people who don't have a driver's licence and people who moved to the St. John's area since 1999.

The Sheriff is John McDonald and he is quite new to the position. If I recall correctly, he was made Sheriff within the past 12 months after a short stint as "Acting Sheriff". It is going to be hard to fault him personnaly, when he wasn't around for the majority of the problem and he has not been there long enough to have rooted out the problem. As well, it would appear that he is not covering anything but calling it human error. His Offices, however, may have some answering to do. With that said, the Sheriff's Office is about as unionized a shop as you will find and answering for things is not the norm. It is clear that someone was supposed to be doing this job for the past 7-8 years and failed to so do. It will be interesting to see the explanation. It will be even more interesting to see if anyone is held accountable.

From a legal perspective, I have not seen the reasons of Justice Adams, however, I suspect that it is a fundamental justice issue. The state prepares the list and limitations to the list reduce the ability of the defendant to receive a fair trial by 12 impartial jurors.

UPDATE: I have been advised that John McDonald is in fact still just the Acting Sheriff. Any culpability on his part is now not just hard to show, it's out the window.

As well, it isn't so clear that someone was supposed to be doing this, though the responsibility is with the Sheriff's Office.

UPDATE II (JULY 26, 2007): Jury List Fixed

Under the headline: Fantino and McGuinty run away from Caledonia

A few weeks back, Fantino sent out an email suggesting the OPP would stop policing Caledonia, though many would argue the OPP stopped policing the town when the occupation began. But never mind Caledonia. Fantino has more important matters to concern himself with, like seatbelt violations.

Read the whole thing.

CBC reports on a vaction to the Dominican Republic ....

That's when … we both realized that this was getting out of control, that this was not just a misunderstanding," said Dawn Sinnott, who began yelling for help.

"You think you're in big trouble now?" Dawn Sinnott recalls a man identifying himself as an employee telling them. He then told them, she said, "You just disturbed the peace. I'm going to have you arrested.… You're going to prison forever."

Instead of a marked police vehicle, though, a white pickup truck arrived to take the Sinnotts away. They were taken to a building with cells, although they were later told the building is used by tourism security and not the actual police.

The Sinnotts said they were astonished when — at one point during the interrogation — the man who accused them of stealing his cellphone answered a cellphone he was carrying. The man said the cellphone he was using belonged to someone else.

"That's when it stopped being about the cellphone," Dawn Sinnott said.

"He said, 'If you just give us the money, you can go,'" Andrew Sinnott said. "I didn't have the [cash] — I didn't even have a room key."

The whole thing is worth a read and reminds me of my brother's friend who, upon graduation from medical school, headed to Mexico for vacation, which vacation ended when the police stuck a gun in his girlfriends face and made hime pay-up. They were going to charge him with some nonsense charge.

More than 100 RCMP officers across Canada were found guilty of misconduct over the past two years for offences ranging from having sex in a cop car and surfing Internet porn on the job to drunk driving, sexual assault and abusing prisoners

Of course it takes a lot to actually get a complaint through the process. From some experience in the system, you can rest assured that the cops caught for misconduct are simply the unlucky ones. The code of conduct is observed is quite often in the breach.

I have not had the chance to review the full decision, but the Supreme Court of Canada in a 9-0 decision has in a struck down detentions of non-citizens under security certificates as a violation of the Charter. This does not mean the immediate release of the three non-citizens currently held under the said certificates, as the SCC has suspended the decison for a year. The court concludes:

The scheme set up under Division 9 of Part 1 of the IRPA suffers from two defects that are inconsistent with the Charter.

139 The first is that s. 78(g) allows for the use of evidence that is never disclosed to the named person without providing adequate measures to compensate for this non-disclosure and the constitutional problems it causes. It is clear from approaches adopted in other democracies, and in Canada itself in other security situations, that solutions can be devised that protect confidential security information and at the same time are less intrusive on the person’s rights. It follows that the IRPA’s procedure for the judicial confirmation of certificates and review of detention violates s. 7 of the Charter and has not been shown to be justified under s. 1 of the Charter. I would declare the procedure to be inconsistent with the Charter, and hence of no force or effect.

140 However, in order to give Parliament time to amend the law, I would suspend this declaration for one year from the date of this judgment. If the government chooses to go forward with the proceedings to have the reasonableness of Mr. Charkaoui’s certificate determined during the one-year suspension period, the existing process under the IRPA will apply. After one year, the certificates of Mr. Harkat and Mr. Almrei (and of any other individuals whose certificates have been deemed reasonable) will lose the “reasonable” status that has been conferred on them, and it will be open to them to apply to have the certificates quashed. If the government intends to employ a certificate after the one-year delay, it will need to seek a fresh determination of reasonableness under the new process devised by Parliament. Likewise, any detention review occurring after the delay will be subject to the new process.

141 The second defect is found in s. 84(2) of the IRPA, which denies a prompt hearing to foreign nationals by imposing a 120-day embargo, after confirmation of the certificate, on applications for release. Counsel for the ministers submitted in oral argument that if this Court were to find that s. 84(2) violates the Charter, the appropriate remedy would be to strike s. 84(2) and read foreign nationals into s. 83. This is a good first step, but it does not provide a complete solution, since s. 83 deals with detention review only until the certificate has been determined to be reasonable, whereas s. 84(2) deals with detention review after it has been determined to be reasonable. Striking s. 84(2) would therefore leave no provision for review of detention of foreign nationals once the certificate has been deemed reasonable.

142 Accordingly, I conclude that the appropriate remedy is to strike s. 84(2) as well as to read foreign nationals into s. 83 and to strike the words “until a determination is made under subsection 80(1)” from s. 83(2).

(Cross post @ The London Fog)