Secret trial | And public trust?

Which police department committed an abuse of rights? Which Crown (everything points to the Federal Crown) filed the charges? Before which court?

You won’t know anything about these details of the secret trial of Named Person, a police informant (1), the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled on Wednesday.

In March, our colleague Vincent Larouche revealed that such a secret trial took place in Quebec. No trace in the justice system. Except in the memory of the judge, the lawyers and the accused.

In this case, the State committed an abuse of rights with regard to a police informant, concluded the Court of Appeal, which pronounced a stay of proceedings. On its own initiative, the Court of Appeal ruled that such a secret trial had no place in our justice system. In March, she decided to reveal its existence in a public judgment, redacting her decision and sealing the court file so as not to identify Designated Person.

Public confidence in the justice system has been shaken. With reason. Light is the best guarantee of the integrity of the judicial process.

No one wants to know the identity of Designated Person. For security reasons, it is important to preserve the confidentiality of police informants, even if they are in the dock (which is rare and exceptional).

Several media, including The Pressbelieve, however, that other details normally of a public nature can be known: the trial court, the trial judge, the prosecutor, the police department, the indictment, the judicial district, the dates .

The Court of Appeal has just refused this request. By explaining… that she can’t publicly explain her reasons. Because that would amount to disclosing information that could reveal the Named Person’s identity to people about whom they have provided information to the police. The safety of the police informant would thus be threatened.

With respect for the Court of Appeal, we find ourselves in a very regrettable situation.

The Court of Appeal agrees with a series of Supreme Court decisions to conclude that the protection afforded to police informants is near absolute. That we cannot reveal any information that would allow an insider in the community (translation: the alleged criminals he denounces) to identify a police informant.

Each court handles thousands of criminal cases per year. Each Crown lays thousands of charges a year. We can imagine the most bizarre scenarios, we do not conceive of any where revealing the identity of the court and the Crown would allow insiders in the field to identify Designated Person.

Which brings us to another problem: the media have never been able to fully make their case, because they don’t know the reason why the Court doesn’t want to release this information.

A consortium of media outlets suggested that their attorney learn about the situation in return for an undertaking of confidentiality on his part. If the situation is as exceptional as the Court of Appeal swears, the latter could come to the same conclusion. But the media could have made their case without being forced to plead blindly. The Court of Appeals declined that suggestion based on a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that has aged badly in light of our secret trial.

The media has not yet decided whether they will take the case to court.

It is to be hoped that things do not stop there. Any breach in the principle of publicity of trials must be examined with the greatest attention.

Criminal trials against police informants may be rare, but they cannot automatically take place in virtual secrecy. Otherwise, how do you know if the police and the Crown are doing their job well?

Not so long ago, no one would have thought it possible to hold a secret trial in Quebec.

Not only did it happen, but there’s now a 101 class to do a near-secret trial of a police informant.

(1) The feminine refers to Designated Person and is used in this text only to simplify reading. The type of “Named Person” is not specified in the Court of Appeal’s decision.