3 total
The court ordered that media cannot disseminate identifying information about young persons charged with offences through private social media messages.
An application was brought by eight young persons to vary a previous court order to explicitly prevent media from disseminating their identifying information, including through private social media messages, in relation to charges of second-degree murder.
The court found that a reporter's actions of contacting individuals on social media and disclosing a young person's name and charges contravened the spirit of the Youth Criminal Justice Act's publication ban under section 110, even if not an intentional breach of the specific prior order.
The court clarified that "publication" under the YCJA includes indiscriminate communication on social media that risks making information known to the general public.
Media granted partial access to redacted youth court records of eight teenagers charged with murder.
A group of media organizations applied under section 119 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act for access to the unredacted youth criminal court records of eight young persons charged with second degree murder.
The Crown and the young persons opposed the application, citing the young persons' heightened privacy interests and fair trial rights.
The court found that while the media had a valid interest in the records, granting access to the entire unredacted file at this early stage was not desirable in the interest of the proper administration of justice due to the risk of irreversible harm from inadvertent dissemination of private information.
The court granted partial access to redacted records, including the charging informations and bail release orders, with identifying information removed.
The court declined to exclude a handgun and spontaneous utterances under section 24(2) despite a premature arrest violating section 9 of the Charter.
The applicant challenged the voluntariness of statements made to police and alleged breaches of sections 9, 10(a), and 10(b) of the Charter.
The court found that the statements were voluntary and that there were no breaches of sections 10(a) or 10(b).
However, the court found a breach of section 9 due to an arbitrary detention, as the arrest was premature and lacked reasonable and probable grounds.
Applying the R. v. Grant test under section 24(2) of the Charter, the court determined that the admission of the evidence (utterances and handgun) would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute, given the minor nature of the Charter breach, the voluntary nature of the statements, and society's interest in the adjudication of serious firearms offences.
The application to exclude the evidence was denied.
