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| Patrick Ducharme |
In R. v. Vasarhelyi1 the Court of Appeal for Ontario considered section 507 of the Code and the procedure to be followed for issuing process when an information is laid under 504. In obiter, the court suggested that these subsections were intended to expedite the preliminary inquiry and circumscribe the scope of the hearing. Further, the court commented that these subsections expand the type of evidence that may be received on a preliminary inquiry beyond what the traditional rules of admissibility would permit. The traditional rules are expanded, provided the information tendered for reception is credible and trustworthy and the opposite party has received reasonable notice of the intention to introduce it, together with disclosure.
The Court of Appeal for Ontario did not offer an opinion as to how a preliminary inquiry Judge assesses written statements as credible or trustworthy. It did not offer an opinion on the scope of subsections (7)-(9). Those issues were not part of this appeal. The case unfortunately offers no guidance on how these subsections should be applied.
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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