An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

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An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts
Parliament-Ottawa.jpg
Parliament of Canada
Citation SC 2019, c. 25
Passed by House of Commons
Passed3 December 2018
Passed by Senate
Passed13 June 2019
Royal assent 21 June 2019
CommencedVarious dates, on proclamation
Legislative history
First chamber: House of Commons
Bill titleBill C-75
Bill citation Bill C-75, 42nd Parliament, 1st Session
Introduced by Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice
First reading 29 March 2018
Second reading 11 June 2018
Considered in committee2 November 2018
Third reading 3 December 2018
Second chamber: Senate
First reading3 December 2018
Second reading4 April 2019
Considered in committee4 June 2019
Third reading13 June 2019
Summary
Omnibus criminal law amendments, including abolition of peremptory jury challenges
Status: In force

An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts and to make consequential amendments to other Acts is a statute passed by the Parliament of Canada. It formerly was known as Bill C-75. [1] Some (if not all) provisions of the Act came into force on 19 September 2019. [2]

It made the headlines when Justice Andrew Goodman of the Ontario Superior Court at trial ruled that the Act had effectively infringed on an indigenous defendant's Charter Rights under Section 7. [2] The first Trudeau administration had meant the Act to redress the power of defendants to dismiss potential jurors as part of their peremptory challenge rights granted as early as 1215 in the Magna Charta document. [2] This was perceived by the Trudeau administration as needless discrimination and thus, in the 21st-century scramble to equalize society, needed to be stricken from collective memory. [2] The need to rectify the law had become apparent to Liberal watchers of the death of Colten Boushie as a result of his 9 August 2016 trespass on the farm of Gerald Stanley, [2] when they perceived racism to be evident in Stanley's 9 February 2018 acquittal. [3] The OSC case is known as R v Dale King. [2] A learned commentator wrote, before the 19 September implementation, that the elimination of peremptory challenges "defeats the intended purpose". [4]

Related Research Articles

In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. Double jeopardy is a common concept in criminal law. In civil law, a similar concept is that of res judicata. Variation in common law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific forms of autrefois acquit or autrefois convict. These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle non bis in idem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jury trial</span> Type of legal trial

A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jury</span> Group of people to render a verdict in a court

A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.

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An ex post facto law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. In criminal law, it may criminalize actions that were legal when committed; it may aggravate a crime by bringing it into a more severe category than it was in when it was committed; it may change the punishment prescribed for a crime, as by adding new penalties or extending sentences; or it may alter the rules of evidence in order to make conviction for a crime likelier than it would have been when the deed was committed.

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Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court ruling that a prosecutor's use of a peremptory challenge in a criminal case—the dismissal of jurors without stating a valid cause for doing so—may not be used to exclude jurors based solely on their race. The Court ruled that this practice violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case gave rise to the term Batson challenge, an objection to a peremptory challenge based on the standard established by the Supreme Court's decision in this case. Subsequent jurisprudence has resulted in the extension of Batson to civil cases and cases where jurors are excluded on the basis of sex.

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In American and Australian law, the right of peremptory challenge is a right in jury selection for the attorneys to reject a certain number of potential jurors without stating a reason. Other potential jurors may be challenged for cause, i.e. by giving a good reason why they might be unable to reach a fair verdict, but the challenge will be considered by the presiding judge and may be denied. A peremptory challenge can be a major part of voir dire. A peremptory challenge also allows attorneys to veto a potential juror on a "hunch".

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Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. Same-sex sexual activity was made lawful in Canada on June 27, 1969, when the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69 was brought into force upon royal assent. In a landmark decision in 1995, Egan v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is constitutionally protected under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2005, Canada was the fourth country in the world, and the first in the Americas, to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide.

A rape shield law is a law that limits the ability to introduce evidence or cross-examine rape complainants about their past sexual behaviour. The term also refers to a law that prohibits the publication of the identity of an alleged rape victim.

The Court of King's Bench for Saskatchewan is the superior trial court for the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.

Racial discrimination in jury selection is specifically prohibited by law in many jurisdictions throughout the world. In the United States, it has been defined through a series of judicial decisions. However, juries composed solely of one racial group are legal in the United States and other countries. While the racial composition of juries is not dictated by law, racial discrimination in the selection of jurors is specifically prohibited. Depending on context, the phrases "all-white jury" or "all-black jury" can raise the expectation that deliberations may be unfair.

This article gives a broad overview of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Canada. LGBT activity was considered a crime from the colonial period in Canada until 1969, when Bill C-150 was passed into law. However, there is still discrimination despite anti-discrimination law. For a more detailed listing of individual incidents in Canadian LGBT history, see also Timeline of LGBT history in Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminal law in the Taney Court</span> Aspect of U.S. judicial history (1836–1864)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes Act of 1790</span> US bill

The Crimes Act of 1790, formally titled An Act for the Punishment of Certain Crimes Against the United States, defined some of the first federal crimes in the United States and expanded on the criminal procedure provisions of the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Crimes Act was a "comprehensive statute defining an impressive variety of federal crimes".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jody Wilson-Raybould</span> Canadian politician

Jody Wilson-Raybould, also known by her initials JWR and by her Kwak’wala name Puglaas, is a Canadian lawyer and former politician who served as the member of Parliament (MP) for the British Columbia (BC) riding of Vancouver Granville from 2015 to 2021. She was initially elected as a member of the Liberal Party – serving as justice minister and attorney general from 2015 to 2019, and briefly as veterans minister and associate national defence minister in 2019 – until she was expelled from caucus amid the SNC-Lavalin affair. She continued to sit in Parliament as an Independent and was reelected in 2019, but did not run in 2021. Before entering federal politics, she was a BC provincial Crown prosecutor, a treaty commissioner and regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criminal Law Act 1827</span> United Kingdom legislation

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Colten Boushie was a 22-year-old Indigenous man of the Cree Red Pheasant First Nation who was fatally shot on a rural Saskatchewan farm by its owner, Gerald Stanley. Stanley stood trial for second-degree murder and for a lesser charge of manslaughter, but was ultimately acquitted in February 2018.

References

  1. "BILL C-75 - STATUTES OF CANADA 2019 CHAPTER 25". PARLIAMENT OF CANADA.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Jury trials at risk as judge strikes down federal ban on peremptory challenges enacted after Boushie case". The Globe and Mail Inc. 6 November 2019.
  3. "Ministers say Canada must 'do better' after Boushie verdict". CBC News. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  4. Spratt, Michael (9 September 2019). "Reactionary legislating makes for bad law". HAB Press. Canadian Lawyer.