Summary Conviction Appeals and Extraordinary Remedies

• Author: Mark C. Halfyard/Michael Dineen/Jonathan Dawe
• Pages: 109-124

109

Summary

Conviction

Appeals and

Extraordinary

Remedies

10

I. Introduction ............................................. 110

II. Summary Conviction Appeals ............................... 111

A. First-Level Appeals to the Summary Conviction

Appeal Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

B. Further Appeals to the Court of Appeal .................. 113

C. Supreme Court of Canada Appeals ..................... 116

III. Extraordinary Remedies and Appeals from Judicial Review

Decisions ............................................... 116

A. Historical Origins ................................... 116

B. The Criminal Code Provisions .......................... 117

C. Scope and Remedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

D. Appeals from Superior Court Decisions Granting or

Refusing Extraordinary Remedies ....................... 119

E. Examples of Applications for Extraordinary Remedies

in Criminal Cases ................................... 119

110 Criminal Appeals: A Practitioner’s Handbook

I. Introduction

As discussed in previous chapters, when criminal charges are prosecuted by indict-

   

Criminal Code.1 Indictable appeals are always to the provincial or territorial court of

appeal, regardless of whether the trial took place in the provincial court or in the su-

perior court.

In contrast, when a criminal charge is prosecuted summarily,2 the trial must take

  

 

 3 which in most jurisdictions is the superior court.4

Once an appeal has been decided by the “summary conviction appeal court”—for

example, by a single superior court judge—further appeals may be brought to the

provincial or territorial court of appeal. However, these second-level appeals are lim-

ited to grounds involving questions of law and require leave of the court, which in most

jurisdictions is now granted only sparingly.



the superior courts also have inherent jurisdiction to review decisions made by prov-

incial court judges and justices through the traditional prerogative writs of certiorari,

habeas corpus, mandamus, procedendo, and prohibition. An application to the superior

court for one of these “extraordinary remedies” is not technically an appeal, but has

a number of appeal-like characteristics. Access to the extraordinary remedies in crim-



1 Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46.

        

Crown has elected to proceed summarily on a hybrid charge.

3 Sections 675(1.1) and 676(1.1) create an exception to this general rule, providing that an

appeal in a summary conviction matter can sometimes be brought directly to the provincial

or territorial court of appeal if the summary conviction charge was “tried with an indictable



  

   



sentence or verdict by a judge of that court, the “appeal court” becomes a judge of the Court



of Nunavut justices of the peace are heard by judges of the Nunavut Court of Justice, while

appeals from decisions by judges of that court must be heard by a single judge of the terri-

torial Court of Appeal.