On April 4, 2013, the tragedy of Rehtaeh Parsons' teenage life unfolded in her home in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, when she attempted suicide by hanging. Three days later, while in a coma, the decision was made to terminate her life support. Her death was widely attributed to the online dissemination ...
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Is it unlawful to record the police during your own arrest? Can you lawfully record the police during a search of your residence? What about a bystander recording someone else's arrest? Does it make a difference if the recording takes place in a hotel lobby, a motor vehicle or on ...
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On December 18, 2013, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 68/167 that expressed "deep concern" about the negative impact that surveillance and interception of communications may have on human rights. The General Assembly affirmed that the rights held by people offline must also be protected online and it called ...
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In a split 2:1 ruling released on August 21, 2015, the British Columbia Court of Appeal held that a sender has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a text message that has been delivered to a recipient's cell phone. Although the sender assumes the risk that the recipient might disseminate ...
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On November 9, 2015, it was widely reported by the media that the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) had decided to review the conduct of Justice Robin Camp in acquitting a defendant of sexual assault on September 9, 2014, when he was a judge of the Provincial Court of Alberta. Justice ...
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In my last post titled Apple And The 'All Writs Act' dated November 2, 2015, I discussed an application before Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, in In Re Order Requiring Apple, Inc. To Assist In the Execution Of A Search ...
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The All Writs Act 28 USC s. 1651 is a United States statute that authorizes the federal courts to "issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law." The original incarnation of the statute dates back to the ...
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On June 1, 2004, Parliament proclaimed in force the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2001, SC 2002, c 13 relating to the conduct of the preliminary inquiry in criminal cases in Canada. The legislation enacted what is now s. 536.3 of the Criminal Code which provides that a statement be provided ...
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When American and Canadian lawyers talk about privacy, they often cast the conversation in terms of a reasonable expectation of privacy. We go there because constitutional jurisprudence drives the conversation in that direction by the application of the reasonable expectation test in Fourth Amendment doctrine and under s. 8 of ...
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The conduct of pretrial conferences in criminal cases continues to generate concerns among defence lawyers in Alberta. I will join the discussion. In this post I will consider the legal regime governing pretrial conferences and the ethical considerations that bear upon the conduct of criminal defence lawyers in these judicial ...
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