(OTTAWA) The federal government should launch an awareness campaign to clearly explain the “extreme voluntary intoxication” policy that caused confusion when it was quickly signed into law earlier this year, a Commons committee recommends in a new report .
The law was intended to update the Criminal Code following the Supreme Court’s decision in May to strike down a complete ban on raising the defense of “extreme self-induced intoxication” in a criminal case.
MPs unanimously agreed in June to pass the law and then publish it quickly, even before asking the Commons Justice Committee to review its implementation.
The report of this committee, tabled Tuesday, indicates that after the decision of the Supreme Court, “a wave of misinformation has arisen, in particular, on social media and among young people”.
According to the report, many people then concluded that simple intoxication — alcohol, for example — could now be raised as a defense in a case of sexual assault or impaired driving.
The new law defines “extreme voluntary intoxication” as intoxication “that renders a person unable to consciously control himself or to be aware of his conduct”. The government argued that this was a high threshold that is rarely used as a defence, and that could not result from alcohol consumption alone.
The law creates a standard of criminal liability when a person commits a crime “in a state of extreme willful intoxication through negligence”. The courts will have to take into account “the objective foreseeability of the risk that the consumption of intoxicants could cause extreme intoxication and cause the person to cause harm to others”.
Jennifer Dunn, director of the London Shelter for Abused Women, told committee members last October that some women fear “that abusers, mostly men, will automatically think they won’t be held accountable for their actions. if they are intoxicated.
Do not deter victims
The committee’s report highlights the need for the general population to fully understand the new law, particularly in the context of sexual assault.
Some victims may choose “not to report a sexual assault when their attacker was under the influence of intoxicants if they believe they will not be believed or if they believe their attacker can easily successfully raise the defense of intoxication extreme,” reads the committee’s report, which notes that only about 6% of sexual assaults are reported to the police.
The committee also heard that some people also mistakenly believed that the defense of “extreme self-induced intoxication” could be used in impaired driving cases.
The parliamentary committee responsible for studying the law after its passage recommends that the government launch a public awareness campaign to communicate in plain language the practical effects of the law and the reasons why this amendment was necessary.
MPs are also urging the government to keep records on the use of extreme intoxication as a defense in court and to review this law in three years.
At a Senate committee meeting last week, Justice Minister David Lametti said the recommendations would be “considered carefully.”
“I’m never closed to a good idea if it helps us improve the Criminal Code,” he said.
The Supreme Court in May struck down the previous version of the Criminal Code’s “extreme intoxication” rules. The old wording was added by the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien in 1995 in response to another Supreme Court decision in 1994 that acquitted a man charged with sexual assault because he was dead drunk at the time of the crime. The amendment was intended to prevent such acquittals.
But the highest court ruled last May that with this amendment, a person could be convicted without the prosecution having to prove that the accused acted voluntarily or that he had ever intended to commit a crime. crime — although a “guilty action” and a “guilty mind” are usually a key factor in the verdict.
The Supreme Court had told lawmakers they could enact a new law to update language so that “extremely intoxicated” people would still be held accountable for their violent crimes.