Reverse onus

Last updated April 17, 2024

A reverse onus clause is a provision within a statute that shifts the burden of proof onto the individual specified to disprove an element of the information. Typically, this particular provision concerns a shift in burden onto a defendant in either a criminal offence or tort claim. For example, the automotive legislation in many countries^{[ which? ]} provides that any driver who hits a pedestrian has the burden of establishing that they were not negligent.

Canada

Reverse onus clauses can be seen in the Criminal Code, where the accused must disprove an imposed presumption. These sorts of provisions are contentious as they almost always violate the presumption of innocence protected under section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The only way that such a provision can survive Charter scrutiny is if it can be justified under section 1.

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down a number of reverse onus provisions. The first and most famous of them was the striking down of section 8 of the Narcotics Control Act in the decision of R. v. Oakes . The Supreme Court in the decision of R. v. Laba (1994) struck down section 394(1) of the Criminal Code that required a person who sold or purchased rocks containing precious metals to prove that they did so lawfully.

In reaction to the number of shootings in Toronto and as part of his 2006 election campaign, Paul Martin proposed amending s. 515(1) of the Criminal Code so that there would be a reverse onus in bail proceedings for those accused with gun-related crimes.

To successfully prosecute hit and run cases, the prosecution must prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the hit and run occurred. Yet there is a presumption that the person on trial, for a hit-and-run, fled the scene of a crash to avoid civil or criminal liability, if the remaining essential elements of the case can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

United Kingdom

The Criminal Finances Act 2017 enables a British court to issue an unexplained wealth order to compel someone to reveal the sources of their unexplained wealth.^[1] Individuals who fail to account can have their assets seized by the National Crime Agency. The law achieves its objectives of fighting money laundering by reversing the onus onto the suspect.^[2]

English libel law is another example. Generally the claimant is required to prove that a statement was made by the defendant, and that it was defamatory – a relatively easy element to prove. The claimant is not required to prove that the content of the statement was false. The onus then shifts to the defendant to prove the truth of the statement which would be considered an affirmative defence.^[3]

In relation to allegedly faulty goods, the reversed burden of proof ensures that during the first six months after a sale, a consumer need not produce any evidence that a product was inherently faulty at the time it was purchased: the retailer must either accept that there was an inherent fault, and offer a remedy, or dispute that it was inherently flawed. After six months the burden of proof is once again on the consumer.^[4]

Pakistan

In Pakistan, the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999^[5] places the burden of proof on the accused in cases where the wealth of the accused is above and beyond his or her known sources of income. Once the National Accountability Bureau, the federal agency responsible for prosecuting corruption and corrupt practices, establishes that an accused has amassed wealth above and beyond his or her known sources of income, the onus shifts to the accused to establish that his or her wealth has been gathered by legitimate means.^[6] The trial under this law takes place in special Accountability Courts established under the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.^[5]

Jurisprudence

The concept of reverse onus is a shift in burden of proof with the presupposition that the applicant (usually prosecution) will be granted their application by the courts. The onus is on the respondent to make a reasonable application of the rule of law with which the application is incompatible.

Related Research Articles

Criminal procedure is the adjudication process of the criminal law. While criminal procedure differs dramatically by jurisdiction, the process generally begins with a formal criminal charge with the person on trial either being free on bail or incarcerated, and results in the conviction or acquittal of the defendant. Criminal procedure can be either in form of inquisitorial or adversarial criminal procedure.

In a legal dispute, one party has the burden of proof to show that they are correct, while the other party has no such burden and is presumed to be correct. The burden of proof requires a party to produce evidence to establish the truth of facts needed to satisfy all the required legal elements of the dispute.

An affirmative defense to a civil lawsuit or criminal charge is a fact or set of facts other than those alleged by the plaintiff or prosecutor which, if proven by the defendant, defeats or mitigates the legal consequences of the defendant's otherwise unlawful conduct. In civil lawsuits, affirmative defenses include the statute of limitations, the statute of frauds, waiver, and other affirmative defenses such as, in the United States, those listed in Rule 8 (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In criminal prosecutions, examples of affirmative defenses are self defense, insanity, entrapment and the statute of limitations.

The presumption of innocence is a legal principle that every person accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty. Under the presumption of innocence, the legal burden of proof is thus on the prosecution, which must present compelling evidence to the trier of fact. If the prosecution does not prove the charges true, then the person is acquitted of the charges. The prosecution must in most cases prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted. The opposite system is a presumption of guilt.

In law, a presumption is an "inference of a particular fact". There are two types of presumptions: rebuttable presumptions and irrebuttable presumptions. A rebuttable presumption will either shift the burden of production or the burden of proof ; in short, a fact finder can reject a rebuttable presumption based on other evidence. Conversely, a conclusive/irrebuttable presumption cannot be challenged by contradictory facts or evidence. Sometimes, a presumption must be triggered by a predicate fact—that is, the fact must be found before the presumption applies.

Beyond (a) reasonable doubt is a legal standard of proof required to validate a criminal conviction in most adversarial legal systems. It is a higher standard of proof than the standard of balance of probabilities commonly used in civil cases because the stakes are much higher in a criminal case: a person found guilty can be deprived of liberty or, in extreme cases, life, as well as suffering the collateral consequences and social stigma attached to a conviction. The prosecution is tasked with providing evidence that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in order to get a conviction; albeit prosecution may fail to complete such task, the trier-of-fact's acceptance that guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt will in theory lead to conviction of the defendant. A failure for the trier-of-fact to accept that the standard of proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has been met thus entitles the accused to an acquittal. This standard of proof is widely accepted in many criminal justice systems, and its origin can be traced to Blackstone's ratio, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

The Indian Evidence Act, originally passed in India by the Imperial Legislative Council in 1872, during the British Raj, contains a set of rules and allied issues governing admissibility of evidence in the Indian courts of law.

Section 11 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Canadian Constitution that protects a person's legal rights in criminal and penal matters. There are nine enumerated rights protected in section 11.

Actual innocence is a special standard of review in legal cases to prove that a charged defendant did not commit the crimes that they were accused of, which is often applied by appellate courts to prevent a miscarriage of justice.

In criminal law, strict liability is liability for which mens rea does not have to be proven in relation to one or more elements comprising the actus reus although intention, recklessness or knowledge may be required in relation to other elements of the offense. The liability is said to be strict because defendants could be convicted even though they were genuinely ignorant of one or more factors that made their acts or omissions criminal. The defendants may therefore not be culpable in any real way, i.e. there is not even criminal negligence, the least blameworthy level of mens rea.

R v Laba, [1994] 3 S.C.R. 965 is a Supreme Court of Canada decision on the presumption of innocence under section 11(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the limitations provision under section 1.

Dixon v. United States, 548 U.S. 1 (2006), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the level of proof required to establish the affirmative defense of duress in a federal criminal case.

Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197 (1977), was a legal case heard by the Supreme Court of the United States that stated that the Due Process Clause Fourteenth Amendment did not prevent the burdening of a defendant to prove the affirmative defense of extreme emotional disturbance as defined by law in the state of New York.

R v W (D), [1991] 1 S.C.R. 742 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on assessing guilt based on the credibility of witnesses in a criminal trial. More specifically, W.D. examines sexual assault cases and burdens of proof in evidence law.

Marital coercion was a defence to most crimes under English criminal law and under the criminal law of Northern Ireland. It is similar to duress. It was abolished in England and Wales by section 177 of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, which came into force on 13 May 2014. The abolition does not apply in relation to offences committed before that date.

The burden of proof is the obligation on a party in a dispute to provide sufficient warrant for its position.

Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790 (1952), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the constitutionality of placing the burden of persuasion on the defendant when they argue an insanity defense in a criminal trial. This differed from previous federal common law established in Davis v. United States, in which the court held that if the defense raised an insanity defense, the prosecution must prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt, but Davis was not a United States constitutional ruling, so only limited federal cases, but not state cases. Oregon had a very high burden on defense, that insanity be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. At that time, twenty other states also placed the burden of persuasion on the defense for an insanity defense.

Evidential burden or "production burden" is the obligation to produce evidence to properly raise an issue at trial. Failure to satisfy the evidential burden means that an issue cannot be raised at a court of law.

In New Zealand, the presumption of supply is a rebuttable presumption in criminal law which is governed by the New Zealand Misuse of Drugs Act 1975. It provides an assumption in drug-possession cases that if a person is found with more than a specified amount of a controlled drug, they are in possession of it for the purpose of supply or sale. This shifts the burden of proof from the Crown to the person found with the drug, who must prove that they possessed it for personal use and not for supply. Note that once the burden of proof has shifted, the burden is one on the balance of probabilities. This presumption exists to make prosecution for supplying drugs easier.

In S v Bhulwana; S v Gwadiso, the Constitutional Court of South Africa established the unconstitutionality of a reverse onus provision applying to the offence of drug dealing under the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act, 1992. Under section 21(1)(a)(i) of the Act, accused persons found in possession of over 150 grams of dagga were presumed guilty of dealing in dagga unless their innocence was proved in court. Handing down a unanimous judgment on 29 November 1995, Justice Kate O'Regan held that this provision violated the presumption of innocence and therefore the constitutional right to a fair trial.

References

↑ "Circular 003/2018: unexplained wealth orders". Home Office. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
↑ Marria, Vishal. "How The Unexplained Wealth Order Combats Money Laundering". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-11-15.
↑ The Committee Office, House of Commons. "House of Commons – Press standards, privacy and libel – Culture, Media and Sport Committee". Parliament of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 2018-11-16.
↑ Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Sale of Goods Act Fact Sheet, archived on 9 June 2009, accessed 16 April 2024
1 2 National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, Pakistan "National Accountability Ordinance, 1999, Pakistan".
↑ Javed, Umair (2018-11-15). "Is the NAB law a discriminatory piece of legislation?". Herald Magazine. Retrieved 2018-11-15.