PUB2 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Reasonable Doubt, Adversarial System, Mens Rea

• School: McGill University
• Department: Public Law 2
• Course: PUB2 111
• Professor: Maxime Hebrard

Document Summary

Contemporary context of proof: distinct context of criminal justice, heightened concern re: convicting the innocent, blackstone: "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer, ascertaining objective "truth" in practice. Inherent uncertainty re: guilt/innocence: typically, there"s a limited knowledge of what occurred, there"s the impossibility of looking into the mind of the accused for the mens rea. Is integral to s. 7 right to life, liberty, and security of person. Is essential to a society committed to a fairness and social justice: expresses faith in humankind, that people are decent unless proven otherwise. It does, considering that it requires the defendant to disprove an element of the offence on balance of probabilities. Leads to development of the oakes test: objective served must be sufficiently important within a free and democratic society, limit must be reasonable and demonstrably justified, which involves a proportionality test. It must be rationally connected to the objective.