BenchPress--Vol 41-1.

• Author: Mitchell, Teresa

A Different Divorce

A British Columbia Provincial Court judge has divorced himself from a couple who have long been bickering in his court over custody and access issues concering their young child. Judge Bruce Hyer ordered a very detailed and specific parenting plan to take the family through to 2018, as they had requested. He then wrote: " I believe the time has come for me to direct that I will not in future hear matters pertaining to these parties, unless there is some emergent situation and no other judge is available. I say this because I now have a real concern that rather than struggle to reach a fair compromise on issues, these parties, and particularly the Father, will elect to have someone who knows all about them resolve the issue. In a sense, I am a known quantity. I believe the time has come for these parties to face perhaps an unknown quantity, a new judge in this court, if they cannot, including with the help of, for example, a parenting coordinator, reach a new agreement.

I think having to face a new judge who knows nothing about them will add a strong incentive or impetus to resolving issues out of court, rather than litigating them before a known judge."

Z.S.R v R.S., 2016 BCPC 200 (CanLII)

http://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcpc/doc/2016/2016bcpc200/2016bcpc200.html

The Entrapment Defence

Entrapment is defined as inducing someone to commit a criminal offence as a result of unfair practices by the police such as trickery, fraud and persuasion. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce recently ruled, for the first time in Canada, that two defendants had been entrapped by the RCMP into committing a terrorist act. The RCMP's involvement with the couple began in 2012 and escalated into an elaborate scheme to plan, organize and carry out a terrorist attack. But Justice Bruce concluded that in fact, the RCMP manufactured a crime. She wrote:" ...the police took two people who held terrorist beliefs but no apparent capacity or means to plan, act on or carry through with their religiously motivated objectives and they counseled, directed, urged, instructed and moulded them into people who could, with...