Section 581 provides the rules governing the drafting of charges. The rules are designed to ensure, at minimum, an accused knows the offence(s) and is informed sufficiently to be able to respond to the charge(s).
Each count in an indictment or information shall in general apply to a single transaction and contain a statement that the accused committed the specified (indictable) offence.1 The count must contain sufficient detail of the circumstances of the alleged offence to provide reasonable information of the act or omission to be proved and to identify the transaction.
The term “single transaction” is not synonymous with “offence”. Instead, a single transaction in this section may refer to a pattern of conduct or a series of separate events. As long as the pattern of conduct can be seen as a series of incidents or occurrences that form a pattern, they may be viewed as a single transaction, not offending the requirements of the single transaction rule.3 The term in this instance is not interpreted in the same strict fashion that a similar phrase, namely, “in respect of the same transaction” used in subsection 548 (1) has been given.
For example, in R. v. Melaragni, the court found that an accused could be joined with another accused in an indictment alleging murder where the offences arose out of the identical set of circumstances and were closely related in time and space, although neither accused was alleged to be a party to the other’s offence.4 Each accused was charged with the murder of Mr. Lawson. Only one of the accused was charged with the additional offences of aggravated assault and careless use of a firearm. The court concluded that joining all the charges together in an indictment was procedural only, and did not affect the substantial rights of either party to the proceedings.
Consequently, a number of individual acts or occurrences, even events taking place over a lengthy period of time, may be viewed as a continuing offence or a single transaction and can be charged properly in one count of an indictment or information. If the Crown does not prove all of the acts or occurrences, the validity of the charge is not affected as long as some are proven.5 Section 589 provides that no count charging murder is to be joined together with any other count other than another murder charge.
The above is the an excerpt of Patrick J Ducharme’s book, Canadian Criminal Procedure, available at Amazon or in bulk through MedicaLegal Publishing along with Criminal Trial Strategies.
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