Hello everyone, I just thought it might be handy if I briefly commented on common law peace bonds.
Most times we defence lawyers encounter these when the Crown wants to drop an assault charge, but wants something in place to protect the alleged victim in the short term.
If the Crown went to the statutory peace bond under Section 810, it would have to be drafted by someone in the Crown’s office before it made its way to court.
Using the common law method, the Crown does not need to do that, and the judge can just read out the terms and a court clerk records them etc. Most times these are for 6-12 months with the typical restrictive clause being that the formerly accused person cannot contact the alleged victim, without his/her written consent that can be revoked by the victim.
However, occasionally, a judge will want to do one of these on his own after a not guilty verdict at trial. The judge might want to do that where the trial evidence against the accused was strong, but not quite strong enough to reach the “beyond a reasonable doubt” criminal law standard.
The concerning issue with that, is that there are no set parameters for such a peace bond- it could be for 10 years! It could restrict the accused from visiting parks etc. No doubt if it was too onerous an l court would intervene, but that takes time and money to do.
So far there have not been any Charter of Rights cases brought to bring doctrinal discipline to this area of law- and thus I say, “beware”!