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In Canada (A.G.) v. Bedford, the Supreme Court of Canada invalidated three prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code on grounds of overbreadth and gross disproportionality. The implications of Bedford go well beyond the particular context of sex work and even of criminal law. First, the Court held that the three constitutional norms against overbreadth, arbitrariness, and gross disproportionality are distinct from each other rather than aspects of a single norm against overbreadth. Second, the Court held that a Charter applicant could establish a violation of section 7 by showing that a law is overbroad, arbitrary, or grossly disproportionate in its impact on the life, liberty, or security of only one person and that the effectiveness of the law in achieving its policy objectives was not relevant to these norms. There are some difficulties in understanding this highly individualistic approach to section 7, and those difficulties lead to the third implication. By deferring any consideration of the effectiveness of the law to the question of whether it is a proportional limit on a section 7 right, the Court may be indicating a willingness to do something it has never done before: recognize an infringement of a section 7 right as a justified limit under section 1. The Court’s clarification of the relationship between the norms against overbreadth, arbitrariness, and gross disproportionality is welcome, but its individualistic articulation of those norms is difficult to understand and its suggestion that section 7 violations may now be easier to save under section 1 is troubling.

Judges are obliged to follow the law, including by imposing mandatory minimum sentences. This can create a moral dilemma. Judges who justify punishment based on its utility in reducing crime may believe that minimum sentences are pointlessly harsh because they do not enhance public protection. Judges who justify punishment based on retributivist theory may feel that mandatory minimum sentences are excessive and therefore unjust. This paper contends that in their effort to impose just and useful sentences, judges tend to seek out and use available legal tools to reduce perceived unfairness. Statutory interpretation, the use of the principle of totality in multiple count prosecutions, and the selective deployment of sentencing tools have all been used to this end. The author contends that striving to constrain the impact of minimum sentences in this way does not corrupt the administration of justice. Instead it is a legitimate, predictable and inevitable outcome.

The current study examined the rate and psychiatric correlates of sexual abuse involving the use of digital technologies by the offender in a wide sample of juvenile victims. Sociodemographic, abuse, and psychiatric characteristics of 662 sexually abused children and adolescents were evaluated. Of these, 93 reported that digital devices were used by the offender in several ways to facilitate the sexual abuse. The offender–victim relationship was initiated through the Internet in 39 victims. Involvement of digital technologies in sexual abuse was significantly associated with penetrative and recurrent form of sexual abuse commited by multiple offenders with coexisting violence. Additionally, victims of sexual abuse with a digital component were 4.21 times more likely to develop any psychopathology, 3.77 times more likely to have depression, and 2.14 times more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of sexual abuse. These results indicated that the offender's use of digital technology may aid the initiation and facilitaion of the sexual abuse of youths and may relate to more severe outcomes. This study revealed the importance of raising the awareness of professionals and the community about the potential risks associated with digital technologies and sexual abuse. Mental health professionals should consider this additional form of victimization, especially when dealing with sexual abuse victims.

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Since the coming into force of the Youth Protection Act (YPA), the Court of Québec (Youth Division) has only issued a small number of decisions declaring that the rights of a child have been violated. Notwithstanding the foregoing, children’s rights violations continue to occur. Considering that enforcement of children’s rights is critical to the YPA, it being closely tied to the legislation’s objective, the author examines these type of decisions by analyzing jurisprudence from the last decade while bringing up certain elements for thought. Firstly, the article discusses the notion of children’s rights violation as well as the possible recourses in the event thereof. Secondly, it examines recent decisions, focusing on the type of rights that have been violated, defenses that have been brought forward and corrective measures ordered by the tribunal. The author highlights issues, introduces distinctions and attempts to clarify certain obligations of the different parties involved. A large and liberal interpretation regarding the violation of children’s rights is generally proposed, specifically while considering corrective measures.

The adoption of a new Code of Civil Procedure in Quebec provides an opportune moment to consider the reasons for, and consequences of, a new direction in adjectival law. Moreover, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the influence of legal traditions on civil procedure, and the role played by such traditions in the legislative evolution and judicial interpretation of procedural law. This paper analyzes the current trends in civil procedure in Quebec, from both legislative and judicial standpoints, and seeks to relate these trends to tradition-based influences. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that Quebec’s procedural law has experienced great swings of the pendulum – originally inheriting continental civilian procedure from the French, gradually evolving towards a very common law/adversarial notion of procedure, and nowreverting back in a civiliste direction.

In recent years, property theorists have offered varying accounts as to what exactly ownership is, typically focusing on one or more key rights to the owned thing. However, most of these theories are articulated in the abstract and do not engage the jurisprudence. This article uses the jurisprudence concerning expropriation and adverse possession to show that Canadian courts have in fact developed their own definition of ownership-one that is not reflected in the property theory discourse. The author goes on to argue that this narrower definition of ownership-made up by the rights to exclude and to primary use-is preferable to those offered by the property theorists, as it better balances the competing interests of owners, non-owners and the state.

This paper draws from the wrongful convictions of women to interrogate the limits of dominant conceptions of wrongful conviction. Most North American innocence projects turn on a conception of demonstrable factual innocence. The paper argues that this focus is problematic as a matter of criminal law principle and presents particular difficulties for women. The paper identifies that family violence forms the primary context for both the conviction of women for violent crimes, and for women's wrongful convictions. Taking two key examples of family violence – child homicide and intimate partner violence – we illustrate that the prevailing focus on demonstrable factual innocence fits awkwardly with identified wrongful convictions in these areas, and argue that this focus may deflect attention from unidentified miscarriages of justice. We suggest that focusing on factual innocence undermines the criminal justice system's proper focus on state responsibilities, including the responsibility to protect women and children from harm, and the asymmetric burden of proof that applies in criminal cases.