R v Oakes [1986] 1 SCR 103 is a Supreme Court of Canada decision that established the legal test for whether a government action infringing a right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is justified. David Oakes challenged the validity of provisions under the Narcotic Control Act that provided a person found in possession of a narcotic, absent of evidence to the contrary, must be convicted of trafficking the narcotic. Oakes contended the presumption of trafficking violated the presumption of innocence guarantee under Section 11(d) of the Charter.
R v Vaillancourt, [1987] 2 S.C.R. 636, is a landmark case from the Supreme Court of Canada on the constitutionality of the Criminal Code concept of "constructive murder". The Court raised the possibility that crimes with significant "stigma" attached, such as murder, require proof of the mens rea element of subjective foresight of death, but declined to decide on that basis. Instead, they concluded that all crimes require proof of at least objective fault, that the particular provision at issue here did not meet that requirement, and therefore that provision of the Criminal Code for constructive murder was unconstitutional.
R v DeSousa [1992] 2 S.C.R. 944, is the Supreme Court of Canada case where the Court determined the Constitutionally required level for mens rea for the charge of "unlawfully causing bodily harm". The case is one of a series of cases including R. v. Hundal and R. v. Creighton where the Court reduced the requirement for culpability for a number of crimes.
Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms constitutionally guarantees Canadian citizens the right to vote for a federal and provincial representative and the right to be eligible for membership in the House of Commons or of a provincial legislature. The rights provided under section 3 of the Charter may be subject to reasonable limits under Section 1 of the Charter.
R v Feeney, [1997] 2 S.C.R. 13 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on the right, under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms against unreasonable search and seizure. The Court held that the police are not permitted to enter into someone's house without a search warrant.
R v Collins [1987] 1 S.C.R. 265 1987 SCC 11 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 8 and was a leading case on section 24(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 which allowed for the exclusion of evidence upon infringing the Charter. The Collins test for section 24(2) was developed for determining if the administration of justice was brought into disrepute by the inclusion of the evidence. The test was later replaced in R. v. Grant.
Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects against unreasonable search and seizure. This right provides those in Canada with their primary source of constitutionally enforced privacy rights against unreasonable intrusion from the state. Typically, this protects personal information that can be obtained through searching someone in pat-down, entering someone's property or surveillance.
R v Lucas is the leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the criminal offence of defamatory libel. The Court held that the Criminal Code offence of defamatory libel infringed the constitutional protection of freedom of expression under Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but the offence was a reasonable limit prescribed by law under Section 1 of the Charter.
R v Godoy, [1999] 1 S.C.R. 311 is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision regarding the scope of police powers to enter into private dwellings without a warrant in order to protect lives. The Court affirmed that police have a common law duty to protect lives and that an anonymous 911 call is sufficient to invoke that duty, consequently, the police were justified in forcibly entering into the private home.
R v Belnavis, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 341, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the right against unreasonable search and seizure under section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court held that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in the backseat of a car.
R v Grant, 2009 SCC 32 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on section 9, section 10 and section 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter"). The Court created a number of factors to consider when determining whether a person had been detained for the purpose of sections 9 and 10 of the Charter. The Court also created a new test for determining whether evidence obtained by a Charter breach should be excluded under section 24(2) of the Charter, replacing the Collins test.
Miazga v Kvello Estate, 2009 SCC 51 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on how the tort of malicious prosecution applies to Crown attorneys and other public prosecutors. Specifically, the court held that there is no requirement for a public prosecutor to have a subjective belief that an accused person is actually guilty. Nor can there be a presumption of malice from a lack of reasonable and probable grounds.
R v Kang-Brown, [2008] 1 S.C.R. 456, 2008 SCC 18, is a constitutional decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on the limits of police powers for search and seizure. The Court found that police do not have the right to perform a sniffer-dog search of public spaces when such search is not specifically authorized by statute. In this case, a suspect's section 8 rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ("Charter") were violated when a police officer stopped him at a bus station and sniffer-dog searched his bag finding drugs in his possession.
The passage of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 allowed for the provision of challenging the constitutionality of laws governing prostitution law in Canada in addition to interpretative case law. Other legal proceedings have dealt with ultra vires issues. In 2013, three provisions of the current law were overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada, with a twelve-month stay of effect. In June 2014, the Government introduced amending legislation in response.
R v Fearon, 2014 SCC 77 is a leading section 8 Canadian constitutional law case, concerning the constitutionality of warrantless law enforcement searches of the contents of a cell phone incident to arrest.
R. v. Jordan was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which rejected the framework traditionally used to determine whether an accused was tried within a reasonable time under section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and replaced it with a presumptive ceiling of 18 months between the charges and the trial in a provincial court without preliminary inquiry, or 30 months in other cases.
In Australian criminal law, reasonable and probable grounds most prominently regulates police officers as a precondition of the exercise of certain powers in their function as enforcers of the law. Based on Australian common law, it is a prerequisite of most police powers. In Canada, it is defined as the point where probability replaces suspicion based on a reasonable belief; reasonableness is a legitimate expectation in the existence of specific facts, and the belief in individual circumstances can be "reasonable without being probable." Less-clearly defined in Australia, it depends on the circumstances of a case and often involves an assessment of the circumstances of a potential crime.
R v Zora, 2020 SCC 14 is a case in which the Supreme Court of Canada held unanimously that the offence of breaching bail conditions under the Criminal Code requires subjective mens rea.
R v Golden, 2001 SCC 83 is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on limitations to the power of police officers to perform strip searches. The Court held that the common law rule allowing police officers to perform warrantless searches incident to arrest must be limited in relation to strip searches, citing their heightened intrusiveness and impact on the Charter protected privacy interests of the accused.
R v Stairs, 2022 SCC 11 is a constitutional rights decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court established new standards for searches of a person's home after they have been arrested. At issue in the case was whether the traditional common law power of Search Incident to Arrest, which allows police officers to engage in warrantless searches of lawfully arrested persons, was compliant with section 8 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as it related to searches of the home.
