Marlys Anne Edwardh

The parties submitted a dispute to arbitration by a Rabbinical Court.

During the proceedings, the panel met ex parte with a previous arbitrator without notice to the parties, breaching the agreed-upon procedure.

The appellant discovered this and sent his own ex parte communication to the panel.

The application judge found a procedural breach under art. 34(2)(a)(iv) of the UNCITRAL Model Law but exercised her discretion not to set aside the award, citing factors including the appellant's own ex parte conduct and the lack of actual prejudice.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the application judge properly balanced the relevant factors to determine whether the breach caused real unfairness or practical injustice.

The applicants sought to set aside an international commercial arbitration award arising from a failed commercial real estate relationship.

The court held that the arbitration agreement did not bar recourse under Article 34 of the Model Law where mandatory procedural protections and public policy were engaged.

The arbitral tribunal's undisclosed meeting with a prior adjudicator without notice to the parties breached the parties' arbitration agreement and met the threshold for potential relief under Article 34(2)(a)(iv).

However, weighing the seriousness of the breach against prejudice, waiver-related conduct, and the practical consequences of setting aside the award, the court exercised its discretion not to disturb the award.

The two accused were charged with drugging and sexually assaulting two different complainants.

The first complainant alleged she was drugged and assaulted by one of the accused in 2003, but the court found reasonable doubt due to inconsistencies in the timeline and lack of corroborating evidence.

The second complainant alleged she was drugged and assaulted by both accused in 2011 after a night of heavy drinking.

The court found reasonable doubt that she was drugged, noting her ability to walk and send text messages during the alleged timeframe.

The court also found reasonable doubt regarding her lack of consent, or alternatively, that the accused had an honest but mistaken belief in her consent.

Both accused were found not guilty on all charges.

The Crown sought to introduce similar fact evidence between two separate sexual assault allegations involving different complainants.

The Crown argued that similarities between the incidents demonstrated that the accused administered a drug to each complainant to facilitate sexual assault and supported credibility findings.

The court reviewed the governing test for similar fact evidence, including the requirement that its probative value outweigh its prejudicial effect and that the similarities render coincidence objectively improbable.

Despite some overlapping circumstances, the court found significant differences between the incidents, including the nature of the relationships, the circumstances of the encounters, the symptoms described, and an eight‑year gap between the events.

The court concluded the similarities were not sufficiently distinctive to overcome the highly prejudicial effect of the proposed evidence.

The Republic of France sought the appellant's extradition for his alleged role in a 1980 terrorist bombing in Paris.

The extradition judge committed the appellant for surrender based primarily on a French handwriting analysis linking him to the bombing, finding the report was not manifestly unreliable despite methodological criticisms.

The Minister of Justice subsequently ordered the appellant's surrender, rejecting arguments that France had not yet decided to put him on trial and that the case relied on intelligence reports potentially derived from torture.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appellant's appeal from the committal order and his application for judicial review of the surrender order, upholding the extradition judge's application of the test for committal and finding the Minister's surrender decision reasonable.

Current and former sex workers challenged three Criminal Code provisions prohibiting bawdy-houses, living on avails, and public communication for prostitution purposes.

The Court held the provisions deprived security of the person by materially increasing risks of violence and preventing safety-enhancing measures, and that the deprivations were not in accordance with fundamental justice due to gross disproportionality and overbreadth.

The Court affirmed that lower courts may revisit precedent when a new legal issue or significant evidentiary change is shown, and confirmed deference to trial findings on social and legislative facts absent palpable and overriding error.

Section 210 (as related to prostitution), section 212(1)(j), and section 213(1)(c) were declared unconstitutional.

Invalidity was suspended for one year to permit legislative response.

This appeal and cross-appeal addressed whether Ontario’s SIU framework permits police officers involved in fatal incidents to consult counsel before completing duty notes.

The majority held the regulatory scheme does not permit consultation with counsel at the note-making stage, emphasizing transparency, public confidence, legislative history, and the duty to prepare independent, complete notes.

It rejected even limited pre-note legal consultation as inconsistent with the scheme’s objectives, while confirming officers may consult counsel after filing notes.

The cross-appeal was allowed, overturning the Court of Appeal’s allowance of basic legal advice prior to notes.

Dissenting reasons on cross-appeal would have preserved a narrow right to basic legal advice that excluded drafting assistance.

The United States sought the extradition of two Aboriginal Canadians to face drug trafficking charges.

The applicants faced significantly harsher sentences in the US than they would in Canada, and the US system does not consider Aboriginal status in sentencing.

The Minister of Justice ordered their surrender, concluding that the Gladue principles were not relevant to their s. 6(1) Charter mobility rights and that surrender would not shock the conscience under s. 7.

The Court of Appeal set aside the surrender orders, holding that the Minister erred in law by failing to properly apply the Gladue principles to the s. 7 analysis and by failing to conduct an independent Cotroni analysis under s. 6(1).

The Court found that surrendering the applicants to face crushing sentences without consideration of their Aboriginal background would violate the principles of fundamental justice.

The applicants, family members of individuals whose deaths were investigated by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), sought a declaration that police officers involved in SIU investigations are not entitled to legal assistance in preparing their notes.

The application judge dismissed the application on grounds of standing, justiciability, and mootness.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding the applicants had public interest standing and the issues were justiciable and not moot.

Exercising its jurisdiction to decide the substantive issues, the Court held that the Police Services Act and the SIU Regulation do not permit police officers to have a lawyer vet or assist in the preparation of their notes, though they may obtain basic legal advice regarding their rights and duties provided it does not delay note completion.

The Information Commissioner of Canada sought judicial review of refusals to disclose records located in the offices of the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defence, and the Minister of Transport, as well as the Prime Minister's agenda held by the RCMP and PCO.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that Ministers' offices are not 'government institutions' under the Access to Information Act.

The Court established a two-part test to determine if records in a Minister's office are 'under the control' of a government institution: whether the record relates to a departmental matter, and whether the institution could reasonably expect to obtain a copy.

Applying this test, the requested records were not under the control of the respective government institutions.

Furthermore, the Prime Minister is not an 'officer' of a government institution under the Privacy Act, meaning his agenda is exempt from disclosure as personal information.

The appeals were dismissed.

The respondents moved to strike or quash portions of the appellants' Notice of Appeal, specifically a request for a declaration and a ground of appeal relating to justiciability and standing.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the motion, deferring the jurisdictional issue to the panel hearing the appeal.

The appellants' cross-motion to have the appeal case-managed was granted, with costs of the motion awarded to the appellants.

The appellant, who was found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder and detained in a mental health facility, sought an absolute discharge and treatment orders as remedies under s. 24(1) of the Charter.

The Supreme Court of Canada established a new approach for determining whether an administrative tribunal is a court of competent jurisdiction under s. 24(1).

The Court held that the Ontario Review Board has the jurisdiction to grant Charter remedies because it has the authority to decide questions of law.

However, the Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the specific remedies sought by the appellant—an absolute discharge for a dangerous patient and a treatment order—were expressly precluded by the Board's statutory scheme under the Criminal Code.

The appellants, a newspaper and its journalists, received an allegedly forged document from a confidential source implicating the Prime Minister in a conflict of interest.

The police obtained a search warrant and assistance order to seize the document and its envelope to identify the source through forensic testing.

The appellants challenged the warrant, claiming a constitutional or common law journalist-source privilege.

The Supreme Court of Canada held that while s. 2(b) of the Charter does not provide a blanket constitutional immunity for journalists, a case-by-case privilege may be established using the Wigmore criteria.

On the facts, the public interest in investigating the serious crime of forgery outweighed the public interest in protecting the confidential source.

The search warrant and assistance order were upheld as reasonable under s. 8 of the Charter.

The Ontario Review Board appealed a costs order made against it by an application judge following a successful application by the respondent to quash an adjournment order made by the ORB.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and set aside the costs order, finding that the application judge applied the wrong test.

The Court held that the test for awarding costs against the ORB should be at least as stringent as the test for awarding costs against the Crown in criminal matters, requiring a marked and unacceptable departure from reasonable standards, which was not met in this case.

The Crown appealed a decision quashing a search warrant and assistance order that required the National Post to produce a forged document and envelope received from a confidential source.

The reviewing judge had found the warrant violated s. 2(b) of the Charter and the items were protected by journalist-confidential source privilege.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, finding no jurisdictional error in proceeding ex parte, and holding that the fourth Wigmore criterion was not met because the law enforcement interest in investigating a serious crime (forgery) outweighed the benefit of protecting the confidential source.

The Crown appealed an order of an Ontario Court of Justice judge who purported to exercise delegated habeas corpus powers to declare the accused's detention in jail unlawful.

The accused had been ordered to undergo a mental health assessment at a hospital but was held in jail due to a lack of beds.

A Superior Court judge had remitted the accused's habeas corpus application to the lower court under s. 775 of the Criminal Code.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal, holding that the lower court judge's order was not a judgment issued on the return of a writ of habeas corpus, as s. 775 does not permit the delegation of superior court habeas corpus powers to a lower court.

Consequently, there was no statutory jurisdiction to hear the appeal under s. 784(5) of the Criminal Code.

On a ministerial review reference treated as a conviction appeal, the court admitted fresh forensic pathology and archival evidence undermining the reliability of the original time-of-death evidence that had been central to the Crown’s theory of exclusive opportunity.

Applying the fresh evidence framework, the court held that the conviction, as affirmed on the earlier reference, could no longer stand and amounted to a miscarriage of justice.

At the remedial stage, the court undertook an extensive review of the historical record, expert evidence, archival material, and the practical impossibility of a retrial.

Although an acquittal was not the only conceivable verdict, the court concluded that an acquittal was clearly the more likely result at a hypothetical new trial and entered that remedy.

In a Reference directed by the Minister of Justice concerning the 1959 murder conviction of Steven Truscott, the Crown sought to introduce fresh evidence from a witness, Ms. X. The proposed evidence described a brief, unwanted sexual advance by Truscott in a cornfield approximately a year before the murder.

The Crown argued the evidence was relevant to rebut good character, challenge credibility, support another witness's testimony, and act as similar fact evidence identifying Truscott as the killer.

The Court of Appeal ruled on the admissibility without hearing the testimony viva voce, finding the evidence clearly irrelevant to any material fact in issue.

The Crown's application to tender the evidence was dismissed, and the defence's request for a publication ban on the ruling was denied.

In the context of a Reference regarding his 1959 murder conviction, the applicant sought production of third-party nursing school and psychiatric records of a key Crown witness.

The applicant tendered fresh evidence from two individuals who claimed the witness admitted to lying at trial and sought psychiatric hospitalization to avoid testifying at a 1966 Supreme Court rehearing.

The Court of Appeal applied the O'Connor test and ordered production of the nursing school records, finding they provided independent confirmation of the fresh evidence with minimal prejudice to the witness's privacy.

However, the court refused to order production of the psychiatric records, concluding that the witness's high expectation of privacy outweighed the limited probative value of the one-page discharge form.

The appellant was convicted of second-degree murder for the shooting deaths of his parents.

At trial, the Crown relied on circumstantial evidence, including the appellant's exclusive insider opportunity and physical evidence, to prove he committed the murders and fabricated a story about an intruder.

On appeal, the appellant argued the trial judge erred in his jury instructions regarding the defence theory, motive, post-offence conduct, and the burden of proof.

The appellant also challenged the trial judge's rulings on the admissibility of expert evidence and sought to introduce fresh evidence.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding no reversible errors in the jury instructions or evidentiary rulings.

The court held that the fresh evidence did not meet the due diligence criterion and would not have affected the verdict.

Furthermore, the court applied the curative proviso under s. 686(1)(b)(iii) of the Criminal Code, concluding that the evidence of guilt was so overwhelming that no substantial wrong or miscarriage of justice occurred.