Section 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms preserves the right of a detained individual to contact counsel immediately upon arrest or detention, and simultaneously imposes a duty upon police to immediately inform individuals that they have this right.
The duty of police to inform suspects of their Section 10(b) rights was firmly established by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Bartle in 1994, where the accused was arrested for alleged impaired driving and the police failed to inform him of his right to contact counsel at the time of arrest. The evidence against Mr. Bartle was excluded on the basis of the Charter breach.
R. v. Feeney was a further case in 1997, where a charge of second degree murder was thrown out after police entered the suspect’s home without a warrant and proceeded to question him without informing him of his right to counsel.
Unlike the American constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not expressly provide for a right to state-funded counsel where the accused cannot afford to retain a lawyer. The Ontario Court of Appeal, however, has interpreted Section 7 of the Charter as requiring the government to fund defense counsel in certainly, narrowly defined circumstances. The reasoning for this was laid out in the Rowbotham decision of 1988.
Civil Forfeiture and the Standard of Proof
Unlike criminal proceedings, where an accused person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty and only punished once their guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, civil forfeiture proceedings operate on the balance of probabilities, meaning that the state must merely demonstrate that an individual has probably done something illegal in order to obtain forfeiture of their property.
Democratic Rights: A Broad Charter Guarantee
Democratic Rights, and specifically the right to vote in provincial and federal elections, enjoy broad constitutional protection in Canada, pursuant to Section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This section states that “Every citizen of Canada has the right to vote in an election of the members of the House of Commons or of a legislative assembly and to be qualified for membership therein.”
The Right to a Speedy Trial in Canada
Section 11(b) of the Charter protects Canadians’ right to a speedy trial, stating that “any person charged with an offence has the right… to be tried within a reasonable time.”
