With a ruling soon to come regarding Roman Polanski's legal woes in Switzerland, the topic of extradition has once again grabbed the public's attention. Closer to home, the Canadian Supreme Court recently released its judgement in Canada (Justice) v. Fischbacher, 2009 SCC 46, regarding the correct process in surrendering an individual charged with a foreign […]
On September 24 the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in United States of America v. Anekwu, 2009 SCC 41. The case concerned the rules of evidence with regards to the Canadian extradition process: specifically, the admissibility of Canadian-gathered evidence that is presented in summarized form, which would not comply with the hearsay rule […]
Last week former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank Iacobucci released the 544 page final report from his commission of inquiry into the jailing and alleged torture of three Canadians: Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin. Justice Iacobucci was charged with reviewing the nature of Canadian intelligence sharing with countries including the U.S., Syria […]
The Supreme Court of Canada recently granted leave to appeal to United States of America v Anekwu, 2008 BCCA 138 [Anekwu], a decision of the the British Columbia Court of Appeal. The issue before the Supreme Court of Canada in Anekwu is whether or not the Court of Appeal erred in finding that hearsay evidence that […]
With recent cases having taken great prominence both here at TheCourt.ca and likewise in the wider media, Lake v. Canada (Minister of Justice) 2008 SCC 23 has gone somewhat overlooked. This is unfortunate, because the case creates firm precedent for the appropriate standard of care required of the Minister of Justice in an extradition case […]
On June 26 the Court of Appeal for British Columbia unanimously upheld a lower court decision committing Yukon resident John Graham for extradition to the United States, where he is to be tried for the three decade old South Dakota murder of Anna Mae Aquash. The United States alleges that Graham, a former American Indian […]
One of the more interesting things I learned in first-year Criminal Law was that, during the 1970s and 1980s, the Supreme Court of Canada ("SCC") twisted itself into knots over the defence of necessity. First, in Morgentaler v The Queen, [1976] 1 SCR 616, it neither confirmed nor denied that the defence existed at common law. […]