Talk:Section 24 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Amended Courts of Competent Jurisdiction section

I made a minor edit in the first paragraph of that section. The text seemed to imply that provincial superior and appellant courts are created by federal statute, which is not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.69.92.188 (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Edits of Exclusion of Evidence section after R. v. Grant

There appears to be some issue as to whether the R. v. Grant information should be just added to what is already in the article - including the information about Collins, or whether the Grant information should replace the Collins information. I have put the article's format into the latter situation, not former, because leaving it as the former is misleading for the following reasons:

1) The Collins test is gone. Completely. The Supreme Court made it very, very clear in Grant that the Collins test will no longer be applied to s. 24(2). Including a detailed analysis of Collins in the article is very misleading to the average reader. It is is old, out-of-date law.

2) The article used to say that ss. 8 and 10(b) breaches will usually result in the evidence being excluded. True, under Collins. But the Supreme Court specifically said in Grant that is no longer the case under the new test. Therefore, it is not just misleading to state that - it is incorrect.

3) The article used to refer to stats about the percentage of evidence that has been excluded. Not only are those stats very out-of-date by 2009, those stats are based on the situation pre-Grant. It would be misleading for readers to think those stats still apply post-Grant.

I am happy to have a discussion here about how to improve the article and how it reads, and even how we can include some of the work that used to be in the article. But I can't stand by and let misleading information remain in the article.

I am also sympathetic that this may mean that editors who contributed in the past to the article about Collins may now have to face the fact that their work is no longer relevant. However, if it's out-of-date, it's out-of date. Instead, let's work together to improve this article post-Grant, and even work together on putting together an article on R. v. Grant. Singularity42 (talk) 03:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Historical information should be included, because, duh, history is encyclopedic. 24.64.165.129 (talk) 22:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

To some extent, provided it doesn't mislead the reader. We can't just re-print the Collins test - it no longer applies to s. 24(2). If it is felt that strongly that the Collins test should still be included in the article for historic reasons, then let's make a new section about prior analytical frameworks that have since been replaced. Leaving it where it is, though, would just be confusing.

Saying that ss. 8 and 10(b) breaches will usually result in the evidence being excluded is just plain wrong now. If we do add a new section, it could say something like 'under this old test, evidence obtained by ss. 8 and 10(b) breaches were often excluded, contrary to how s. 24(2) is analyzed today.'

As for the stats, I can't see where they belong. They should have been taken out a while ago. Using a 2000 article (which is no longer available online anymore), to say that a certain percentage of evidence has been excluded under s. 24(2) is no longer relevant in 2009.

If there is enough call for it, we could add the following:

The Grant test replaced the previous analytical framework in R. v. Collins, which focused on the issue of trial fairness, by analyzing whether it was physical evidence, the seriousness of the Charter breach, and the public's perception by the exclusion or admission of the evidence. The Collins test was further modified in R. v. Stillman, which focused the first inquiry on conscriptive versus non-conscriptive evidence (with the former almost always being excluded). Neither the Collins test nor the Stillman test apply anymore to s. 24(2) analysis. Singularity42 (talk) 00:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC)