The Crown brought an application seeking to vacate a preliminary hearing date scheduled for October 29, 2019, and to remand the accused to Superior Court unless he re-elected to be tried in Ontario Court of Justice.
The application arose from amendments to sections 535 and 536 of the Criminal Code (Bill C-75) that came into force on September 19, 2019, limiting preliminary inquiries to cases where the accused faces a maximum penalty of 14 years or more.
The Crown argued the amendments should apply retrospectively to all pending cases, including the accused's case where the maximum penalty was less than 14 years.
The court dismissed the application, finding that while the amendments are purely procedural, they cannot be adapted to pending cases where an accused has already elected trial in Superior Court and requested a preliminary hearing.
