Ideablawg’s Weekly Connections: Inside The Courtroom

Although criminal lawyers have an intimate knowledge of the courtrooms in which they practice, what do we really know about courtrooms elsewhere? We assume other courts would be all fairly similar but having practiced in Ontario and appeared in a myriad of courtrooms from Toronto, to Windsor, to Lindsay, and beyond, I can say courtrooms do differ. But how do courtrooms in other jurisdictions look? What about other countries? What goes on in them anyway? Well, thanks to the Internet, there are options and tools to help anyone peek into the inside of a court and to see, and perhaps understand more clearly, what exactly is going on inside.

1.   The International Criminal Court (ICC): I have written about the International Criminal Court in previous blogs, most notably here. This past week, the ICC trial chamber has been hearing the Ruto and Sang prosecution. William Samoei Ruto, the Deputy President of the Republic of Kenya and Joshua Arap Sang, head of operations of Kalenjin language radio station KASS FM in Nairobi, are charged with crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute. Ruto and Sang are being tried for their role in the ethnic violence ocurring after the 2007-2008 Kenyan elections. The ICC distributes a video summary of weekly cases in their video series called “In The Courtroom.” The Ruto and Sang matter is this week’s installment showing the courtroom and the various members of the court as well as excerpts of the testimony of a witness, whose identity is carefully protected through use of a pseudonym, facial pixilation, and voice distortion. After the hearing summary, there is a short explanation about the court process including the possible prison terms and where such a sentence would be served. Not only does this video give us an opportunity to experience a totally different kind of criminal court but it gives us a better appreciation of the difficulties surrounding the prosecution and defence of international crimes.

2.   You Be The Judge: This is a great online interactive tool created by the Ministry of Justice in the UK to explain how a judge sentences an accused. The website allows the viewer to observe various criminal cases and to make interactive decisions, based on various factors, to determine the length of incarceration. The viewer/player experiences the courtroom setting and benefits from a number of “asides” from the Bench explaining the process. Through polls taken during the hearing, the viewer can see, in a risk-free environment, if their decisions are consistent with other viewers and with the sentencing judge. I have used this website in my undergraduate criminal justice classes to show how a sentencing judge uses his or her discretion with the rule of law to come to an appropriate and fit sentence.

3.   The Model Court: In a previous blog, I wrote a short piece on the intersection of law and art based on readings from a group of essays in Thousand Eyes: Media Technology, Law and Aesthetics published by Sternberg Press. In the journal are photographs of the “Model Court,” which is a collaborative research project involving a group of artists, Sidsel Meineche Hansen, Lawrence Abu Hamdan (who does some fascinating aural work in the area of the political role of voice in law called Aural Contract), Oliver Rees (he’s so supercool I can’t even describe what he does, so just check out his website) and architect, Lorenzo Pezzani. The project “uses the structure and technologies of the courtroom to interrogate the signifying and controlling role architecture plays in contemporary art and society.” By offering a “model court” as a container of ideas of “jurisprudence, evidence, and the hidden apparatuses that become the essential constituents of tribunals,” the project extends us beyond the courtroom into a representative space, which pushes the traditional four-wall envelope to give us an alternative view of justice. 

Section 16: The Defence of Mental Disorder - Episode 18 of the Ideablawg Podcasts on the Criminal Code of Canada

Section 16 describes the defence we now know as mental disorder but which we previously called the insanity defence. It is an incapacity defence, meaning that if successful the accused person is found to be incapable of forming the requisite intent for the crime. Thus, the accused could not even formulate the malicious intent required to commit the crime and is therefore absolved of criminal responsibility. The insanity defence is from English common law; specifically the 1843 British House of Lords Daniel M’Naghten case and thereafter the insanity defence became known as the M’Naghten Rule. This rule was codified into our Criminal Code from the Code’s inception.

In the 1892 Code, the defence was found under s.11. To read the section is a lesson in now inappropriate language as the section absolves those “labouring under natural imbecility” or disease of the mind. Other than this, the section does read very similarly to the present section 16 as a person “labouring” or “suffering,” as we say now, is exempt from criminal responsible if that disease or disorder rendered the person “incapable of appreciating the nature and quality” of his or her actions. However under the 1892 section the accused must also be incapable “of knowing that that the act or omission is wrong.” Let’s quickly look at the present section 16(1) for comparison:

No person is criminally responsible for an act committed or an omission made while suffering from a mental disorder that rendered the person incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission or of knowing that it was wrong.

Our present defence requires that the person suffering from a mental disorder must be “incapable of appreciating the nature and quality of the act or omission” or “knowing it was wrong” and not and “knowing it was wrong” as in 1892 version.

The balance of the subsections under the 1892 section 11 is as follows:

2. A person labouring under specific delusions, but in other respects sane, shall not be acquitted on the ground of insanity, under the provisions hereinafter contained, unless the delusions caused him to believe in the existence of some state of things, which, if it existed, would justify or excuse his act or omission.

3. Every one shall be presumed to be sane at the time of doing or omitting to do any act until the contrary is proved.

Subsection 2 from the 1892 insanity section qualifies subsection 1 by providing an exception. A person may be “labouring under natural imbecility or a disease of the mind” but if they suffer from specific delusions and are otherwise sane, they cannot use the insanity defence unless those delusions “caused him to believe in the existence of some state of things which, if it existed, would justify or excuse his act or omission.” Subsection 3 indicates that everyone is presumed sane “until the contrary is proven.” Once an accused is found NCR or not criminally responsible, the person would be held in detention until the “pleasure” of the Lieutenant Governor. This “pleasure” had no time limitation. Although, I will not discuss this here, this indeterminacy was changed in later amendments.

The 1892 version of the defence continued until the 1953-54 amendments at which point the section was re-enacted as s. 16 but this version, again, is quite different from what we have today. The revised section reads very much like the original version except that it changes the “and” “knowing that such act or omission is wrong” to “or.”

In 1975, the Law Reform Commission of Canada, as it then was (it was disbanded in 1993 and re-enacted as the Law Commission of Canada in 1996 but then had its budget cut in 2006 and was closed down), published Working Paper #14 on “The Criminal Process and Mental Disorder.” The significant commissioners at the time were two soon to be Supreme Court of Canada Justices – Antonio Lamer (Vice-Chair and later to be Chief Justice of the SCC) and Gerard La Forest (commissioner) and the Chair, E. Patrick Hartt, who became a Justice of the High Court of Ontario in 1996 and retired in 2001. For more information on the fascinating history of Canada’s law reform agencies, I recommend reading Gavin Murphy’s paper that can be accessed here.

In any event, this Working Paper, although not partially acted upon until the 1991 amendments (which were done in response to the constitutional striking down of the old sections by the Supreme Court of Canada), suggested various fundamental changes to the insanity defence and the procedures surrounding it. As a result, it is with some irony that the Paper opens with the words “It [the Paper] examines many of the important but sometimes neglected problems of mental disorder in the criminal process.” It seems the issue was even further neglected legislatively for a further sixteen years.

However, there was some groundwork done in the intervening time. The government, in 1982, through the Department of Justice, started the Mental Disorder Project as part of a comprehensive review of the criminal process by provincial and federal Minister of Justice officials. In 1983, a discussion paper was published and again the procedural difficulties and inherent unfairness in the system were discussed. Additionally, with the advent of the Charter, the system’s constitutional compliance was questioned. A full report was eventually tabled in 1985 and a draft Bill was introduced in 1986 by the then Minister of Justice John Crosby. The Bill was still under scrutiny when in 1991, the Supreme Court of Canada found the insanity rules and some of the Criminal Code sections unconstitutional in the Swain case. It should be noted that the then Chief Justice Lamer together with Justice Cory and Justice Sopinka wrote what would be the majority decision. Justice La Forest concurred with Justice Gonthier, who agreed substantially with Lamer CJ’s conclusion.

Thus we have the 1991 amendments under which we practice today. Although the new amendments have not anticipated all issues, certainly section 16 is a much better and fairer section than the previous iteration.

The present version retains the presumption of sanity but also clarifies the burden of proof required to overcome the presumption. It must be noted that either the Crown prosecutor or the defence may raise the issue of mental disorder. If this occurs the trier of fact must be satisfied on the civil standard of balance of probabilities that the presumption of sanity does not apply. There is no exception, in the present s. 16, for specific delusions. The balance of the present section 16 (2) and (3) is as follows:

Presumption
(2) Every person is presumed not to suffer from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility by virtue of subsection (1), until the contrary is proved on the balance of probabilities.

 Burden of proof
(3) The burden of proof that an accused was suffering from a mental disorder so as to be exempt from criminal responsibility is on the party that raises the issue.

Although section 16 sets out the defence of mental disorder, the presumption of sanity and the burden of proof, it is Part XX.1 of the Criminal Code, entitled Mental Disorders, which sets out the procedure to be followed in considering the defence. It is a lengthy Part and thus the defence of mental disorder is complex and time consuming requiring often-competing experts and the application of circuitous special procedures. A full discussion on this Part will come when we discuss sections 672.1 to 672.9, much further down this Criminal Code journey.

One last comment on the recent controversial nature of this issue, particularly with the finding that Vince Li, who beheaded a passenger on a bus, was found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder and was sent to a psychiatric institution for treatment. Just recently Li’s terms of segregation at the hospital were relaxed by the Criminal Code Review Board of Manitoba to permit Li to leave the hospital unescorted. This relaxation has resulted in a call to tighten once again the consequences of a finding of mental disorder.

The Federal Government has been most vocal in wanting changes and introduced last year a Bill C-54 to amend the Code to include strict restrictions on a person found mentally disordered under s.16. Critics of the Bill suggest that the further stigmatizing of the mentally ill will not “make society safer.” The Bill received its First Reading in the Senate in June of 2013. Read the presenting speech made by the original sponsor of the Bill, the then Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, as well as the response speeches here. Read also the article by the Canadian Psychiatric Association on the “fundamental flaws” in the new proposal.

It should also be noted that in a recent legal conference on mental disorder and the criminal justice system, questions were raised on the constitutionality of the proposed new amendments. Although, section 16 has come a long way from M’Naghten and the 1892 Code, the future of criminal responsibility and mental disorder is still unsettled and may only be determined, once again, by court intervention.  

Section 16 - The Defence of Mental Disorder: Episode 18 of the Ideablawg Podcasts on the Criminal Code of Canada

Ideablawg’s Weekly Connections: International Women’s Day and Legal Inspiration From Abella, Arbour and Smith

Today is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate how far women we have come in terms of gender equality but also a day of hope as we reflect on what still needs to be done. We are not quite there yet and certainly in many countries across the globe not there at all. There are so many inspiring women of all ages but I devote this week’s connections to three jurists women who give me legal inspiration.

1. There are of course numerous Canadian women in the law profession who provide inspiration to us all. Check out the page at U of T Law School dedicated to some of these legally minded trailblazers. Out of the list, I find inspiration from Madame Justice Rosalie Abella, now sitting on the Supreme Court of Canada. Not only she is an exceptional jurist and dedicated human rights advocate (see the blog I wrote on her dissent in the Court of Appeal on Crown misconduct) but her life story is also an inspiration. A child of the Holocaust, she was born in a Displaced Persons’ Camp in Stuttgart, Germany where her father, a lawyer, helped advocate for the other displaced persons’ in the camp. I have had the opportunity to appear in front of Justice Abella when she was first appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal and argued a sentence appeal before her in the first week she was sitting on an Appeal panel. Although it was a straightforward appeal, Justice Abella showed her mettle and her mind by dissenting in the case. This was not a controversial case at all and indeed the dissent, legally, did not matter but what did matter was the humanity and compassion she showed by doing it.
2. Another Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, albeit a former Justice, is Louise Arbour. Most people recognize her as the Justice who stepped down from the SCC to become the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals investigating the war crimes of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She then became High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2004 and retired from that position in 2008. Although her tenure in the international scene was not without controversy, she is an inspiration for her tenacity and her deeply held beliefs in international human rights. She now heads the International Crisis Group where she speaks out against any oppressive regime and even western powers like Canada, who, in her view, are not doing enough to advance human rights internationally. Again, I had the pleasure of appearing before Justice Arbour many times when she sat in the Ontario Court of Appeal. Her expansive knowledge of criminal law made it a pleasure to argue a criminal appeal before her. However, I believe it was when she took on the unenviable task of inquiring into the Prison for Women at the Kingston Penitentiary in 1995 that I truly found her most inspiring. Her report is a shocking read but an important one for prisoner rights and women rights. She truly made a difference. After her report, P for W was disbanded.
3. For more inspiration, I look no further than the trial court. Day in and day out trial judges sift through the nuts and bolts of legalese and listen to the narratives placed before them. Sure they determine cases by applying legal principles but the very best trial judges do so by hearing the stories of the people affected. This is an important part of access to justice – to listen and to give those before them a fair and just hearing.  When I was a law student at Osgoode Hall Law School, I was lucky enough to win the lottery for the incomparable Criminal Law Intensive Program run by the then criminal law professor Alan Grant. It was an amazing program where we students were seconded with lawyers and judges to shadow their daily work lives and to take in their unique perspective on the criminal justice system. I was seconded with the then District Court Judges and among the group I had the honour to work with was the then the Honourable Judge Heather Smith. Of course now she is Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and the first woman to hold that position. There are no words to express how impressed I was with her abilities and her commitment to the criminal justice system.  As a woman and as a soon to be articling student, she inspired me to treat the law and those individuals in the law, be it lawyers or clients, with respect. In my mind she was the epitome of a trial judge – competent, thoughtful, compassionate and learned in the law - and an inspiration for a young female barrister ready to take on the world.

Section 15 – De Facto Laws, Criminal Responsibility and War Crimes:Episode 17 of the Ideablawg Podcast

During the Nuremberg trials, many Nazis tried to exculpate themselves by suggesting they were only following superior orders. This was not a valid defence according to the Charter of the International Tribunal under article 8. However, it was a mitigating factor in determining punishment. If the defendant, however, was the superior, according to article 7, the de facto defence was also not available but neither was it to be considered in mitigation. In Canada, prior to the war, obedience to the laws made at the time was a bar to conviction pursuant to English common law and as codified under section 15 of the Criminal Code. However, after the war, in order to conform to international conventions and to ensure the prosecution of war criminals, the Criminal Code was amended to include an exception for war crimes. When the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act was enacted in Canada in the year 2000 the Code was again amended and the exception was moved from the Code to the new Act under sections 13 and 14.

Section 15 of the Code presently reads as follows:

No person shall be convicted of an offence in respect of an act or omission in obedience to the laws for the time being made and enforced by persons in de facto possession of the sovereign power in and over the place where the act or omission occurs.

 An equivalent to this section has been in the Code since its inception but with different wording. Until the section was re-enacted as s.15 in the 1953-1954 Code amendments, the section “protected” a person from “criminal responsibility” as opposed to barring conviction.

In one of the oldest cases on the issue, the 1911 case of Kokoliadis v. Kennedy from the Quebec Superior Court, Justice Davidson considered to what extent a person was protected from criminal responsibility under the old section. In the case, Justice Davidson turned to the English common law for explanation and determined that laws as an expression of the “will of the legislature” “protects all who obey it and justifies all who do what it authorizes.” Furthermore, the law in question need only be made by persons with de facto or in fact authority, not necessarily legal authority. Thus, even if the authority is ultimately found to be ultra vires under the Constitution Act, the person obeying this law is still within his or her rights. Similarly, when a person is faced with two conflicting laws from two levels of government, he or she cannot be convicted of choosing to follow one over the other.

The purpose of the de facto doctrine, according to case law, “is to preserve law and order and the authority of the government” and “to protect the rule of law.” According to Albert Constantineau, a French-Canadian jurist writing in 1910 on this subject, without this doctrine “insubordination and disorder of the worst kind would be encouraged, which might at any time culminate in anarchy.”

For obvious reasons, this de facto doctrine was not applied at the Nuremberg trials and was specifically not accepted at “The Justice Trial,” wherein members of the Reich Ministry of Justice, including the law courts, were tried for their part in upholding Nazi laws.

The applicability and constitutionality of the combined effect of section 15 and the exception to it was at issue in the Supreme Court of Canada Finta case. Both the majority decision written by Mr. Justice Cory and the dissent (in part) written by Mr. Justice La Forest delve extensively into the defence of obedience to superior orders. Both decisions found that the exception to s.15 was not unconstitutional.  In his dissenting reasons, Justice La Forest pointed out that s. 15 was more generous than international law, as we already noted in discussing the International Tribunal Charter. However, the defence under s.15 was available under the military law of other nations and therefore section 15 not only upheld the rule of law as submitted by Constantineau, but also acknowledged the realities of being a member of the military or police force. In La Forest’s view the defence of obedience to superior orders could provide a valid defence “unless the act is so outrageous as to be manifestly unlawful” as in the case of the Nazi atrocities.

When would an order be “manifestly unlawful?” When, according to Justice Cory writing for the majority, “it offends the conscience of every reasonable, right-thinking person” and is “obviously and flagrantly wrong.” According to Justice Cory, if the exception to s. 15 did not exist and obedience to de facto law was permitted in all scenarios “not even the most despotic tyrant, the author and enforcer of the most insidious laws against humanity, could be convicted of crimes committed under his regime.”

Harkening back to Constantineau’s concern that without section 15 chaos would ensue, we can see the tension between upholding the rule of law and the consequences of so doing it. Chaos may reign in not following de facto laws but surely in some situations death will reign in following them. However, in the situation envisioned by Justice Cory and unfortunately realized in our recent past, this conflict resolves itself in favour of using the criminal law as a reflection of society’s fundamental values and the societal abhorrence we feel toward crimes against humanity.

Although we like to believe the age we live in is the most peaceful and civilized, every day as we flip through the news, either digital or in print, we see the fallacy of this belief. Criminal law in Canada is built upon traditions and our Code is no exception but in this case, thankfully, there are exceptions to the rule.

Episode 17 of the Ideablawg Podcast on the Criminal Code of Canada: Section 15 - de facto Laws, Criminal responsibility and War Crimes

Ideablawg’s Weekly Connections: The Olympics Edition

Of course, this week is all about the Olympics and when sport and law sometimes intersect.

1.   The Dispute: How does the IOC (International Olympic Committee) decide which sports should be included in the games? Although the Olympics have come a long way since the Ancient Greeks competed in a handful of events, there are a number of sports not included in the games and a few, which have been dropped over the years. Baseball and softball were not on the roster for the London Olympics but considering Tokyo will be hosting in 2020, this may change. Wrestling was off and then on again.  The Olympic rules require all sports to be reviewed after every Olympics with sports to be added or dropped by a two-thirds majority vote. There are, of course, those sports, which have been added to the Olympic lineup, such as golf, rugby (reappearing) and kitesurfing (new) in the 2016 Olympics.   At Sochi there were new events such as team figure skating and the snowboard and ski slopestyle.  Women’s ski jump was a new event this year but not without some controversy. The quest for gender equality in the ski jump event evolved over time, culminating in a legal challenge by high-ranking women ski jumpers before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics. The British Columbia Court of Appeal, in dismissing the women’s case, found that the Charter could not apply to the selection of the 2010 events as and that even if the Charter did apply there was no breach of equality rights under s.15(1). Although, the question of whether VANOC or the Vancouver Olympic Committee was a government entity was easily answered in the negative, however the more difficult question was whether in organizing and staging the event VANOC was carrying out governmental activities. Even though there was governmental support for the Olympics, the Court found that this fact was not decisive on the issue of selection of Olympic events. In deed, neither VANOC nor the governmental agencies supporting the host City were involved in the selection of events. Thus, it could not be said that VANOC was the decision-maker and therefore the Charter could not apply.   Even so, the Court considered the reach of the equality s.15. In finding there was no breach the Court stated, “section 15(1) sets out constitutional guarantees of equality that are broad in scope, but it does not constitute a general guarantee of equality.  Rather, the section guarantees equality only in the way that the law affects individuals.  Where the law is not implicated in discrimination or inequality, is not engaged.” As the law or statutory authority was not engaged by the right or lack thereof to compete in the Olympics, s. 15 was not available and was not breached. A leave application to the Supreme Court of Canada was dismissed with costs. In the end, women’s ski jumping was approved for inclusion in Sochi. Unfortunately, none of the women who brought the court case won a medal in the sport, but what they did, in the end, win a victory for the sport.

2.   The Crime: Remember when Olympic scandals read like soap operas? If your memory needs refreshing, take a backward glance at the Tonya Harding – Nancy Kerrigan incident, when Kerrigan was attacked by a hammer to her knees, before the 1994 Olympics at the Women’s Championship and could not compete. That year Harding won and then lost as it was revealed that she was involved in the conspiracy to assault Kerrigan. But don’t worry, Nancy Kerrigan went on to perform in the Ice Capades while Tonya is now a professional boxer. Irony on ice?

3.   The Sabotage: What is it about skates? The Kerrigan/Harding incident did not stop some members of the American short track team from sabotaging Canadian Olympic gold medalist Oliver Jean’s skates in 2011. Despite this admission, the skater who did the deed accuses the coach for pressuring him to do it. The ISU or International Skating Union’s disciplinary commission considered the case last year and laid the blame for the incident squarely on the coach. This year at Sochi the Canadians were careful to check their skates before competing.

4.   The Dissent: Controversy swirled at the Olympics over the lack of gay rights in the host country and the lack of desire to meet with the Vancouver envoy supporting gay rights. But dissent escalated even further when Pussy Riot, the female punk rock activists, who were jailed last year after performing a “blasphemous” song in the Moscow Cathedral, were arrested but released in Sochi and then whipped by Cossacks – yes, there are still Cossacks. Read about their angry music video on the debacle entitled "Putin Will Teach You To Love Your Country" here.