Edmonton lawyer asks top court to strike down sections of Canada’s sex offender laws
The fallout from a 2011 Edmonton sexual assault case has come before the Supreme Court of Canada.
The country’s top court has been asked to consider striking down two sections of Canada’s sex offender laws as unconstitutional.
In 2011, the Stephen Harper government altered the Criminal Code so the names of sex offenders would automatically be placed on the sex offender registry.
The changes meant judges no longer had discretion on whether to submit names of sex offenders to the registry. It also mandated that anyone convicted of two sex offences or more would automatically be placed on the registry for life.
On Tuesday morning, appearing virtually in the Supreme Court, Edmonton defence lawyer Elvis Iginla asked the justices to replace mandatory placement with judicial discretion.
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Crown argues for status quo
Alberta Crown prosecutor Jason Russell argued in favour of maintaining the current legislation.
“The objective is to formulate a comprehensive database for law enforcement,” Russell said. “We just don’t have the tools to say which offender is going to re-offend.”
Russell compared automatic listing on the registry to mandatory DNA orders for certain designated offences.
He acknowledged there’s a modest impact on the offender’s privacy rights, but argued that for most offenders the information remains unused in a highly secured database unless they are suspected of re-offending.
Nice to see the Canadian Prosecutor admit the true primary intent of Canada’s Sex offender database was to assist law enforcement. Rather than the delusional of “to prevent crimes against the most vulnerable.”
Take note of the article’s author use of the word “comprehensive” in describing Canada’s database and the author’s use of the phrase “Crown argues for the status quo.” In computer science terms the status quo is referring to standard output of database = Null. Obviously, to we database developers and object oriented programmers comprehend authority’s misunderstanding of all aspects database are in reality distorted by an errant perception of usefulness of described necessary null.
While I can claim no expertise in Canadian law, computer science remains heterogeneous across all forms of government and social compact. Canadians, in fact, have no bill of rights for which authority must consider in weighing social benefit. We here in the U.S to have this constitutional default to consider.
Of course the prosecuter is arguing to kept the registry!
“The objective is to formulate a comprehensive database for law enforcement,” Russell said. “We just don’t have the tools to say which offender is going to re-offend.”
Mr. Russell – Do you have the tools to say who is going to offend initially let alone to think you know who is going to re-offend? I don’t believe you do. Guessing is the best you’ll do with data you think is right. I believe you’ll win some cases and lose some cases but don’t know which will be a win or a loss.