International Law

Constitutional round-up

Christopher’s Law (named after Christopher Stephenson, a child killed by a sex offender on parole), is an Ontario law requiring convicted sex offenders to register with the police. According to the Ontario Court of Appeal it is constitutional.

While the reporting requirements of Christopher?s Law admittedly infringe the liberty interests of the appellant and others in his position to some extent, these restrictions ? both physically and informationally ? are modest when compared to the important state interest sought to be achieved by the legislation. The restrictions are particularly modest given that the appellant has already been tried and convicted of a designated sex offence.

And there were some other cases dealing with consitutional issues today as well. What were they . . .

Oh yes.

In the companion cases of A. M. and Kang-Brown the Supreme Court held that drug-sniffer dog searches were unconstitutional basically because they were undertaken without reasonable grounds for suspicion (the actual decisions are more complex, but I’m simplifying). Much, much discussion can be found following the stories at the CBC and the Globe and Mail. Personally, I thought the school case A. M. was going to go down. The business with confining all the students to their classroom and doing a random search of a pile of backpacks was a big stretch. The bus depot case I could have seen going the other way, especially after Tessling and the way it narrowly defined privacy rights.

I still haven’t gone over both decisions fully. Perhaps more later!

Full post as published by Criminal Review on April 25, 2008 (boomark / email).