British Columbia’s updated policy on bail, aimed at keeping dangerous offenders off the street, is raising the concern of legal and civil liberties experts who say it upends the Charter-protected presumption of innocence and can lead to wrongful convictions.
Premier David Eby announced the new directive, from Attorney-General Murray Rankin to prosecutors, as part of a broader public-safety plan on Sunday.
B.C.’s urban mayors have been pleading for help in addressing a small number of repeat offenders who commit an outsized amount of crime. A resulting report commissioned by the province noted the frustration of law-enforcement stakeholders who said Crown counsel are resistant to approving breach of bail conditions without an additional substantive charge, rendering police “essentially powerless to stop repeat crimes.”
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Kyla Lee, a lawyer with Acumen Law, said that denying people of reasonable bail can lead to more innocent people pleading guilty.
“If your sentence is going to be 30 days for theft or smashing a window or something, and you spend a week in custody and you’re getting two-to-one credits, you’re already getting 14 days. You may as well just plead guilty to another two weeks and you’re done,” she said. “Otherwise, you’re waiting in custody for six months for your trial.”
However, Ms. Lee does not believe that the removal of the language from the revised bail policy will lead to substantial changes in how Crown counsel will approach their jobs.
“At the end of the day, you’re not behaving lawfully as a prosecutor if you’re seeking detention for people who would not get a custodial sentence anyway, and judges would not be behaving lawfully if they’re detaining somebody if a state sentence would not include a period of detention,” she said.
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