Hugues Parent is worried. Members of the House of Commons are studying Bill C-28, which aims to close a loophole in the Criminal Code following a Supreme Court judgment. And as the work will be adjourned Thursday for the summer, the government intends to press the accelerator to obtain its adoption.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
However, this bill which deals with the defense of “extreme voluntary intoxication” has a “major flaw”, says this professor from the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal, whose work has notably fueled the reflection of the Supreme Court on the subject.
By limiting this concept of intoxication to a person who is no longer aware of his or her conduct, the government risks missing the target. “If the bill is adopted as is, there will definitely be strong arguments to circumvent section 33.1,” says Professor Parent, a specialist in defenses in criminal law.
Bill C-28, introduced June 17 by Justice Minister David Lametti, seeks to rewrite section 33.1 of the Criminal Code on the use of an “extreme willful intoxication” defense for persons charged with certain violent crimes.
An invalid article of law since May
This bill is a response to the judgment of the Supreme Court handed down on May 13. It struck down section 33.1 of the Criminal Code, which barred defendants from raising “extreme intoxication” as a defense to crimes against the person. The provision, deemed too broad, violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But at the same time, the Court invited the government to modify this article so as to hold accountable the extremely intoxicated people who commit violent crimes.
According to the bill, people found to have been in a state of “extreme intoxication” when they committed an offense can be held responsible for those crimes.
The bill defines extreme intoxication as a state “that renders a person unable to consciously control himself or to be aware of his conduct” — a state also called “automatism”.
The problem — and it’s a nasty problem! — is that by limiting extreme intoxication to a state akin to automatism, the government leaves aside intoxications which do not disturb the individual’s consciousness, but which affect his relationship with reality , such as psychoses.
Hugues Parent, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Montreal
He gives the example of an individual who would be plunged into a psychosis following the consumption of cocaine. Convinced because of his delusional ideas that his neighbor wants to kill him, the individual grabs a weapon and goes to his house to shoot him. “In this example, the individual knows what he is doing. He consciously controls his conduct, but is not in a position to know, because of his delusional ideas of persecution, that his act is wrong”, says Hugues Parent.
“Far from being unconscious, the act committed by the accused is directly in line with the pursuit of the goal imposed on him by his delusional ideas: to save his life by killing his assailant. The individual could then plead that his state of extreme intoxication was closer to ‘insanity’ than to automatism”, says Mr. Parent.
He could thus circumvent the new article 33.1 and escape criminal liability.
Intoxicated, aware and responsible
Automatism is a defense invoked when an individual is in a diminished state of consciousness, such as during an epileptic fit or sleepwalking. “The person is capable of making gestures, but he is not aware of it. Automatism induced by a substance, such as a drug, is “very, very rare,” says Parent. In more than 20 years of research on this subject, he has seen no more than four cases taken up by the courts.
On the other hand, cases of psychoses triggered after drug consumption, where very intoxicated people are aware of their actions, “the police and psychiatrists will tell you that it happens very frequently”. But these people are not targeted by Bill C-28, says Hugues Parent.
How to ensure that defendants who wish to invoke “extreme intoxication” can be held responsible for their actions?
By broadening the notion of “extreme voluntary intoxication” not only to a state akin to automatism, but also to “insanity” — a definition which has already been recognized by the Supreme Court in 1994 , emphasizes Hugues Parent.
Without this change, he already predicts that defense attorneys will exploit this loophole to their advantage. “It is obvious that this problem will come back to haunt the courts. »
“What we want is to empower people who become intoxicated to the point where they lose consciousness of their actions, or they lose the ability to understand that their actions are wrong,” says Hugues Parent. “We want to prevent a person from being excused for committing a violent crime by saying ‘I was too high’. This is, I believe, what society wants. »