OTTAWA –
The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the extension of Canadian rape protection laws made by liberals four years ago.
In judgment 6-3 today, the court said that the extended rules for further preventing the applicant’s past use of sexual violence against them in the proceedings were “constitutional in their entirety”.
Laws on protection against rape were passed four decades ago to prevent the applicant in a sexual violence case from using evidence of their sexual history to discredit them.
The Penal Code states that evidence of the applicant’s previous non-prosecution sexual activity may be admitted only with the permission of a judge after a private hearing and cannot be used to conclude that the applicant is less reliable or more likely to agree.
In 2018, the Liberals expanded the definition of what this evidence included to include sexual communications such as emails and videos, as well as documents for the complainant, which were in the possession of the accused.
They also gave the applicant the right to participate in the hearing before the judge and to be represented there by a lawyer.
In today’s judgment, a majority of the judges argued that the right to a fair trial did not guarantee that the accused would receive “the most advantageous trial possible” and that “the applicants’ ambush with their own very private files” could be unfair and useless in finding the truth.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 30, 2022.
Add Comment