A Brampton judge recently ruled in favor of a woman who was murdered as a minor and now wants to practice the law against the express wishes of the Ontario Bar Association. This removes any public fear of being represented by a lawyer who ran afoul of the law in their youth.
In his judgment, the judge Bruce Duncan He writes that when a minor serves his sentence and reaches the age of majority, guilty verdicts for the crime no longer have any effect.
The woman can only be identified by her initials AB under the law because of her murder in Peel region about 20 years ago.
The judge did not reveal any details about the murder for which the woman was convicted. However, the document shows that AB completed his sentence in 2014.
An Ontario court ruling ensures that young offenders can be protected as adults if they have completed a sentence for any crime committed during their youth. (archive photo)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Camille Gauthier
The guilty verdict appears to have been overturned
He states by citing Art. 82 of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
No attempt to prove the contrary is permissible and no court or any administrative tribunal can conclude that AB has been convicted of an offence. [pour lequel elle a été accusée dans sa jeunesse]
He said in a judgment dated August 15.
Definition of section 82
82 (1): subject to the article 12 of the Canada Evidence Act, a juvenile’s conviction is deemed never to have been (…) and any decision made under the Youth Criminal Justice Act in relation to the offense does not produce their effects.
Source: Government of Canada
Justice Duncan affirms the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada on this point. However, the Magistrate notes that there are exceptions to this rule and none of them apply to AB.
An inalienable right to social reintegration
The Ontario Bar wanted to use AB’s criminal past before an administrative tribunal to determine whether the young woman met the moral criteria required by the professional mandate to grant her the right to practice.
Justice Duncan ruled that AB’s criminal history as a juvenile could not be used against him by the Ontario Bar.
Photo: Getty Images / Michał Chodyra
Judge Duncan prompts the bar for posing in passing A tendentious and unreasonable question under Art. 82
For AB during the hiring process in 2016, this allowed him to learn about the candidate’s past.
Effective social reintegration requires young offenders to be given the opportunity to return to their lives and put their interactions with the criminal justice system behind them so that they can enter their adult lives without any stigma resulting from their criminal record.
At that time, AB agreed that the bar could access information in his youth court file.
The same judge of the Ontario Court of Justice in 2019 gave a favorable decision to the lawyers in the matter, when the lawyers of the bar requested it.
The Ontario Law Society occupies the same Ontario Court of Appeal building in downtown Toronto. (archive photo)
Photo: Radio-Canada / Turgut Yeter
AB then addressed the judge in 2021, realizing that he was not obliged to give such permission to the bar as part of his application. Duncan His decision to allow the Law Society to obtain such damaging information should be overturned.
AP’s claim came up for hearing last June.
The public has no reason to worry
In his ruling, the magistrate also ordered the bar to hand over AB’s criminal record, noting that Barr should not have asked such a question about her past as a child.
In my opinion, the evidence relating to the conviction or offense of murder cannot be used for the purposes of the bar or even examined by an administrative tribunal thereof.
The judge continues.
AB is certainly presumed not to have committed the offence
The magistrate concludes that such circumstances are exceptional.
AB’s murder trial in Brampton court in the early 2000s (file image)
Photo: Radio-Canada / (CBC Archives)
The judge admits that he himself made an error at the time by allowing the bar access to AB’s file, but he explains that the bar’s reasons for acting in this way were not known at the time – there.
He further dismissed any concerns from the community that his decision should not limit his ability to scrutinize candidates’ profiles in the future and harm the public.
Parliament has always taken the view that once all young people have re-entered society, the positive effects of cleaning up their pasts outweigh any potential negative or indirect effects.
The judge recalled that other professional orders, organizations or professions would not have access to the files of ex-juvenile offenders they work with as adults today, or to know the background justice of their youth.
As far as I know, no harm or even an outcry has been reported due to such restrictions by the courts
He concludes.
AP’s attorney, Naomi Sayers, acknowledged but did not respond to our request for an interview.
In an email, the bar for its part wrote that it is currently studying the judgment. He has up to 1R Oct. to appeal the decision to the Ontario Superior Court.
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