By: Admin
PDF Version: A Superior Court’s Inherent Jurisdiction to Infringe the Charter Right to a Jury Trial?
Case Commented On: R v Boisjoli, 2018 ABQB 410 (CanLII)
The decision of Justice Eldon J. Simpson in R v Boisjoli is unusual. On April 5, 2018, the Crown and the accused, Mr. Boisjoli, appeared before Justice Simpson to select jurors for a trial scheduled for the week of April 9. The charge (or one of the charges) was one of intimidation of a justice system participant, contrary to section 423.1 of the Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c C-46. However, no jury was selected on April 5. Instead, Justice Simpson, by his own motion and under the claimed authority of the court’s inherent jurisdiction, ordered that Mr. Boisjoli’s trial go ahead as a trial by judge alone. Justice Simpson’s order was made because of the anticipated behavior of Mr. Boisjoli, i.e. that he intended to “artificially frustrate the jury selection process” (at para 24) and “disrupt and sabotage” the jury trial (at para 37). There was only a brief mention of Mr. Boisjoli’s Charter right to a trial by jury, and no Charter analysis. Instead, Justice Simpson relied upon an analogy to a section in the Criminal Code that equated an accused’s non-appearance with a waiver of a jury trial.