Right to Counsel: Implementational Obligations

• Author: Brian H. Greenspan, Vincenzo Rondinelli
• Profession: General Editors
• Pages: 359-423

359

Right to Counsel:

Implementational

Obligations

11

I. Introduction ............................................. 

II. Obligations on the Detainee ................................ 

A. Invocation ......................................... 

B. Reasonable Diligence ................................ 

III. Obligation to Hold O Eliciting Evidence from the Detainee ...... 

IV. Timing .................................................. 

A. Evolution in the Jurisprudence ......................... 

B. Facilitate Access at the First Reasonably Available

Opportunity ........................................ 

C. Intentionally Delaying Access to Counsel ................ 

V. Privacy Issues ............................................ 

A. The Right to a Private Consultation ..................... 

B. Privacy Versus Consultation Without Delay ............... 

VI. Reasonable Opportunity to Contact Counsel ................... 

A. Contacting Third Parties .............................. 

B. Duty Counsel and Counsel of Choice .................... 

C. Paralegals ......................................... 

D. Quality of the Legal Advice ............................ 

VII. Supplemental Informational Obligations ...................... 

A. Waiver and the Prosper Warning ....................... 

B. Warning a Non-Diligent Detainee ...................... 

C. Correcting Misleading or Inaccurate Information .......... 

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360Detention, Arrest, and the Right to Counsel

VIII. Re-Consultation in Changed Circumstances ................... 

A. Non-Routine Procedures ............................. 

B. Change in Jeopardy .................................. 

C. Reason to Question the Detainee’s Understanding

of Their Rights ...................................... 

D. Undermining Legal Advice or Condence in Counsel ....... 

IX. Particularly Vulnerable Detainees ............................ 

X. In-Person and Continuous Consultations ...................... 

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Chapter  Right to Counsel: Implementational Obligations 361

I. Introduction

Informing a detainee of their right to counsel is often just the first step in the police

discharging their responsibilities under section 10(b) of the Canadian Charter of

Rights and Freedoms.1 If the detainee invokes their right to counsel, then the police

must turn to their implementational obligations. In a nutshell, the police are required

to facilitate a reasonable opportunity for the detainee to consult with counsel.2 For

the consultation to mean something, the police must wait to elicit evidence from the

detainee until after the detainee has been aorded a reasonable opportunity to access

legal advice.3

This chapter will canvass what the police must do to discharge their implementa-

tional obligations. The jurisprudence has imposed a lengthy list of obligations, some

of which only arise in certain situations, and the police must understand them all.

Failing to observe any applicable obligation will constitute a standalone breach of

section 10(b). Courts can fall into error when they decline to find a breach on the

basis that the police, save for one mistake, otherwise observed all their section 10(b)

obligations. Before getting to the obligations on the police, however, it is necessary to

start with the obligations that attach to the detainee. As will be addressed next, the

police are only required to facilitate access to counsel if the detainee invokes their

right tocounsel.

II. Obligations on the Detainee

The section 10(b) analysis is not only concerned with the conduct of the police

because the section imposes two main obligations on the detainee. First, to engage

the police implementational duties, the detainee must invoke their right to counsel.

Whether a detainee has invoked their right to counsel is a question of fact.4 Second,

even after the detainee has invoked their right to counsel, the police are only required

to hold o eliciting evidence from them if the detainee is being “reasonably diligent”

in exercising their right to counsel. Each obligation will be addressed in turn.

1 Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c11

[the Charter].

2 R vSuberu, infra note 69 at para38 (the police must “provide the detainee with a reasonable

opportunity to retain and instruct counsel”) (cited to SCC); R v Sinclair, infra note 335 at

para 26 (“give detainees the opportunity”) (cited to SCC); R v Taylor, infra note 91 at para 25

(“facilitate access to [s. 10(b)] rights”); R v Manninen, 1987 CanLII 67 at paras 21-23 (SCC)

(“facilitate contact”; “oer … the telephone”).

3 R v Bartle, infra note 6 at 191, 192; R v Willier, infra note 45 at para 29.

4 R v Owens, infra note 16 at para 28; R v Backhouse, 2005 CanLII 4937 at para 77 (ONCA).

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