June 2011 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton commemorated the sombre occasion by recalling the disease’s history. In her remarks on June 5, Clinton noted that in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, “the world was shocked [...]

A trial judge is not required to itemize every conceivable issue, argument or thought process in his or her reasons.  Trial judges are entitled to have their reasons reviewed based on what they say, not on the speculative imagination of reviewing courts.  Here, the trial judge expressly stated that he relied only on the DNA [...]

On April 8, the Supreme Court of Canada (“SCC”) decided in a 5-2 judgment that fresh evidence that could reasonably be expected to affect the result of a verdict was sufficient to order a new trial in “he said, she said” sexual assault cases.  The majority in R. v. J.A.A., 2011 SCC 17, found that [...]

As someone who came of age in the late 90s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the past decade was always omnipresent. No sex ed. class was complete without a candid discussion about HIV transmission, and the importance of practicing safe sex. But even though HIV was always a part of the conversation, I frankly felt a [...]

On October 29th the Supreme Court allowed the appeal of a controversial civil case to be remanded to the Quebec Superior Court for assessment. The court will hear the story that a victim thought she’d never have the chance to tell. It involves a 25-year-old sexual assault charge, a priest who plead guilty to the [...]

On February 2 the Ontario Court of Appeal rendered its decision in Leering v. College of Chiropractors of Ontario, 2010 ONCA 87, a professional ethics/discipline case concerning the stiff prohibition on sexual relations between medical professionals and their patients. In December 2004, the appellant Vincent Leering, a chiropractor, commenced an intimate relationship with a woman. [...]

On Friday, the Supreme Court released judgment in the malicious prosecution case Miazga v. Kvello Estate, 2009 SCC 51, long-awaited by the parties involved as final resolution to the bizarre and heartbreaking judicial saga once termed Saskatchewan’s “Scandal of the Century”. The decision is also much-anticipated by my fellow editors at TheCourt.ca, who have previously [...]

Moving Beyond the Unilateral Duty Last week, I broadly surveyed the benefits and detriments flowing from R. v. Cuerrier, [1998] 2. S.C.R. 371, the case enabling the Crown to prosecute sero-positive individuals who fail to disclose an HIV transmission risk. While Cuerrier’s “duty to disclose” does serve the social imperative that express misrepresentations of serostatus [...]

Criminalizing Non-Disclosure, Cuerrier and Beyond In September 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Cuerrier, [1998] 2. S.C.R. 371 that disclosure of sero-positive status is required to legally validate consent in sexual relations that pose a significant risk of transmitting HIV. What has followed is a lengthy series of HIV-related prosecutions, numbering [...]

“It is tragic but true that people working with the vulnerable sometimes abuse their positions and commit wrongs against the very people they are engaged to help.” In M.E. v. Sproule, 2008 CanLII 58428, Chapnik J. begins by quoting from the decision of McLachlin J. (as she was then) in Bazley v. Curry, [1999] 2 [...]