Giuseppe Battista

The appellant was charged with refusing to comply with a demand to provide a breath sample.

At trial, the Crown conceded the availability of the defence of extreme intoxication akin to automatism, and the accused was acquitted.

The Court of Appeal for Quebec set aside the acquittal and entered a conviction, doing so by raising and deciding the availability of the defence despite the Crown's concession.

The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal erred in raising and deciding the availability of the defence in view of the Crown's concession.

Given the unusual circumstances, it was not in the interests of justice to overturn the acquittal, and the Court expressly refrained from deciding the availability of the defence on the merits in the absence of an adequate record on the constitutional issues.

In a constitutional challenge to federal tax requirement powers, legal professional secrecy was weighed against the state’s audit and collection objectives.

The court held that compelling production from legal advisers without adequate notice to clients, without judicially supervised safeguards, and with an overbroad accounting-records exception produced unreasonable seizures under s. 8.

The impugned provisions failed minimal impairment and were not justified under s. 1.

The provisions were read down to exclude notaries and lawyers acting as legal advisers, and the accounting-records exception was declared invalid.