Canada\u2019s top court has unanimously dismissed a bid by the Edmonton Police Service to limit information about officer misconduct turned over to defendants in criminal cases.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday issued its decision<\/a> in the case of Edmonton Police v. John McKee, a man charged in 2022 with drug and weapons offences. During pre-trial proceedings, McKee learned the lead detective had disciplinary records that could assist his defence.<\/p>\n While the Crown agreed the records were relevant, Edmonton police refused to turn them over, claiming the misconduct had been removed from the officer\u2019s disciplinary file after a period of good behaviour.<\/p>\n A seven-judge Supreme Court panel disagreed with the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) interpretation of the law and said the records must be handed over.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police must meaningfully participate in the disclosure process by identifying and transmitting relevant information to the Crown, including investigative and disciplinary material,\u201d Justice Sheilah Martin wrote. <\/p>\n \u201cThe administrative removal of a record of police misconduct from a police officer\u2019s record of discipline does not alter the legal regime under which its disclosure is determined in criminal proceedings.\u201d<\/p>\n Edmonton police had argued requiring police to turn over files \u201cexpunged\u201d for an officer\u2019s disciplinary record would undermine their privacy rights and cause the justice system to \u201ccollapse under the impossibility of the Crown\u2019s disclosure obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n The court disagreed, saying an accused\u2019s ability to make \u201cfull answer and defence\u201d trumps privacy concerns.<\/p>\n \u201cPolice cannot unilaterally withhold relevant information from first party disclosure based on their assessment of their privacy interests,\u201d Martin wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n More to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n jwakefield@postmedia.com<\/a><\/p>\n x.com\/jonnywakefield <\/a><\/p>\n @jonnywakefield.bsky.social<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don\u2019t miss the news you need to know \u2014 add EdmontonJournal.com<\/a> and EdmontonSun.com<\/a> to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. The Edmonton Journal<\/a> | The Edmonton Sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s top court has unanimously dismissed a bid by the Edmonton Police Service to limit information about officer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[37589,37587,37590,52,1790,37591,37588,4201,36187,14494,2269],"class_list":["post-105041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-disciplinary-record","tag-disciplinary-records","tag-disclosure-obligations","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-police-service","tag-john-mckee","tag-police-misconduct","tag-police-officer","tag-sheilah-martin","tag-supreme-court","tag-supreme-court-of-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}