Devin Bains

The Crown sought to prevent the accused from re‑litigating two pre‑trial rulings made during an earlier jury trial that ended in a mistrial after the trial judge recused himself for a reasonable apprehension of bias arising from a personal tax dispute with the Canada Revenue Agency.

The Crown relied on s. 653.1 of the Criminal Code, which presumes that evidentiary and Charter rulings from a mistrial remain binding at a new trial unless the interests of justice require otherwise.

The court held that although the provision creates a presumption favouring preservation of prior rulings, the circumstances of the recusal and the trial judge’s own comments suggesting that earlier rulings might appear influenced by the conflict undermined confidence in those decisions.

Given that concern, the interests of justice required that the impugned motions be re‑litigated before the new trial judge.

The Crown’s application to bind the parties to the earlier rulings was dismissed.

The applicant, charged with tax fraud, brought an application under s. 11(b) of the Charter seeking a stay of proceedings due to unreasonable delay.

The total time from the laying of charges to the anticipated end of the trial was approximately 85 months.

The court applied the Morin framework and found that the delay was not unreasonable given the extreme complexity of the case, the voluminous electronic disclosure, the involvement of multiple co-accused, and the applicant's waiver of earlier trial dates to retain her preferred counsel.

The application was dismissed.