R (Canada) v Adams

Justice Sopinka wrote for a unanimous court in this appeal from the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench on a case in which a Criminal Code section 486 publication ban was overturned by the trial judge, Justice Feehan, after he had found the primary witnesses for both sides of a sexual assault trial to be unreliable.

Feehan J. considered as policy reasons in favour of lifting the publication ban that: ... this woman went into the beer parlor as a predator, and this fellow says he lost $900. I didn't make that as a finding of fact, but he says he lost $900. ... Don't we owe society a duty to tell the next person that goes into that beer parlor for a beer and maybe also looking for a prostitute, that this is a dangerous one[?]

The Crown applied for leave to appeal directly to the Court from the order of the trial judge, pursuant to s. 40(1) of the Supreme Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. S-26. Mootness was raised by the respondent, and discarded by the court; In any event, even if the appeal were moot it would exercise discretion to hear the appeal. Jurisdiction of this issue was confirmed, and the Supreme Court reinstated the publication ban. Sopinka quoted approvingly Justice Lamer in Canadian Newspapers Co. v. Canada (Attorney General):

Encouraging victims to come forward and complain facilitates the prosecution and conviction of those guilty of sexual offences. Ultimately, the overall objective of the publication ban ...is to favour the suppression of crime and to improve the administration of justice... A discretionary ban is not an option as it is not effective in attaining Parliament's pressing goal.