Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

• Author: Administrator
• Date: March 30, 2016

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. R. v. Ghomeshi, 2016 ONCJ 155

[128] I have very deliberately considered the evidence relating to each of the charges separately. Each complainant in this case had a different and unique experience with Mr. Ghomeshi. However, there are certain common aspects to their cases. Each had some involvement in the arts and entertainment world, which brought them into contact with the accused: an event catering waiter; an actor; and a dancer. Each complainant accused him of a certain act of violence in the context of a brief dating relationship. Each one chose not to make a complaint to the authorities until years after the fact. Each one came forward in 2014 in the wake of, or in the midst of, the extensive publicity surrounding the very public termination of Mr. Ghomeshi at the CBC.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. Lymer v Jonsson, 2016 ABCA 76

[16] Read in this way, the effect of s 192(3) is to limit the Registrar’s power to sanction for ex facie contempt so as to reserve to the superior court the power to imprison. The express reservation of the power to imprison supports the conclusion that Parliament intended to confer the balance of the contempt powers on the registrar. If, as the appellant argues, s 192(3) was intended to exclude all contempt powers, it would also remove the registrar’s power to sanction for in facie contempt. That could not have been Parliament’s intent. To remove that power would severely hamper a registrar’s ability to control the proceedings before the registrar, a power expressly granted to registrars by s 192(1)(k).

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

3. R. v. Borowiec, 2016 SCC 11

[1] This case requires us to explore a particularly dark corner of the criminal law, the law of infanticide. Section 233 of the Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46, provides that “a female person commits infanticide when by a wilful act or omission she causes the death of her newly-born child, if at the time of the act or omission she is not fully...