Canada’s highest court has ruled that the law prohibiting the use of automatism, or extreme intoxication, as a defense for certain crimes is unconstitutional and has asked Parliament to consider new legislation.
The Supreme Court on Friday released judgments in three cases that examined whether people who committed certain violent crimes could use the defense of automatism — a state of extreme intoxication to the point where they lost control of themselves — same.
Judge Nicholas Kasirer, who wrote the unanimous decision, said the section of the Criminal Code that prohibited the use of this defense for certain acts was unconstitutional.
Justice Kasirer writes that the use of the Criminal Code section violates the Charter because a person’s decision to become drunk does not mean that he intended to commit a violent offence.
The Charter was also violated because an accused could be convicted without the prosecution having to prove that the person wished or intended to do the act.
The court also says parliament may want to enact legislation to hold extremely drunk people accountable for violent crimes, to protect vulnerable victims, especially women and children.
The federal government enacted the existing law in 1995 following a court ruling recognizing drunkenness as a defense to a sexual assault charge.
One of the cases being considered by the high court on Friday involved a Calgary man who consumed alcohol and magic mushrooms, then violently attacked a woman while in a state of dizziness. extreme drunkenness.
The court reinstated the acquittal of Matthew Brown, who was found guilty of breaking into a teacher’s house and assaulting her with a broomstick while naked and intoxicated with mushrooms magical.
Judge Kasirer said Matthew Brown was not just drunk or on drugs, but “was in a state of psychosis and had no control over his actions”.
The other court decision dealt with two Ontario cases, those of Thomas Chan and David Sullivan.
The men had either killed or wounded relatives. Both were drugged — one had used magic mushrooms, while the other had attempted suicide with an overdose of a prescription drug to quit smoking.
Applying the decision in the Brown case, the court acquitted David Sullivan because he had proven that he was in a state of intoxication “akin to automatism”, noting that the trial judge found that he was acting involuntarily.
The higher court ordered a new trial for Thomas Chan because he was entitled to raise the defense of automatism, but no findings of fact were made in the original trial.
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This article was produced with the financial support of the Meta Fellowships and The Canadian Press for News.