[26] I agree with the position of counsel for the appellants that the trial judge failed to provide sufficient reasons to allow for meaningful appellate review. In reaching my conclusion, I have found helpful the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Dinardo, (2008), 231 C.C.C. (3d) 177 (Sup. Ct. Can.), and R. v. Walker, (2008), 231 C.C.C. (3d) 289 (Sup. Ct. Can.).
[27] In Dinardo, Charron J. reviewed the jurisprudence that requires a trial judge to provide meaningful reasons for conviction or acquittal, with particular emphasis on the leading decision in R. v. Sheppard, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 869. In the course of this review, Charron J. emphasizes that an appeal court reviewing the sufficiency of reasons should adopt a "functional approach", examining the evidence as a whole and the submissions of counsel in the assessment of whether the reasons respond to the case's live issues. She emphasizes that it is only where "the trial judge's reasons are so deficient that they foreclose meaningful appellate review", that the appeal based on insufficient reasons will be allowed: Dinardo at para. 25.
[28] At paras. 30 & 32, in comments relevant to this appeal, Charron J. concluded:
[T]here is no general requirement that reasons be so detailed that they allow an appeal court to retry the entire case on appeal. There is no need to prove that the trial judge was alive to and considered all of the evidence, or answer each and every argument of counsel (Braich, at para. 38).
...
This Court emphasized in Sheppard that no error will be found where the basis for the trial judge's conclusion is "apparent from the record, even without being articulated" (para. 55). If the trial judge's reasons are deficient, the reviewing court must examine the evidence and determine whether the reasons for conviction are, in fact, patent on the record. This exercise is not an invitation to appellate courts to engage in a reassessment of aspects of the case not resolved by the trial judge. Where the trial judge's reasoning is not apparent from the reasons or the record...the appeal court ought not to substitute its own analysis for that of the trial judge (Sheppard, at paras. 52 and 55). [Emphasis added.]
[29] The principles espoused in Dinardo are recognized as well by Binnie J. in R. v. Walker at para. 20, who also refers to Sheppard and the principle that "[t]he appellate court is not given the power to intervene simply because it thinks the trial court did a poor job of expressing itself". Binnie J. also refers to Sheppard's recognition of a number of broad policy reasons that underscore the importance of the duty to give adequate reasons at para. 19:
At the trial level, the reasons justify and explain the result. "Reasons for judgment are the primary mechanism by which judges account to the parties and to the public for the decisions they render" (para. 15). The losing party is entitled to know why he or she has lost. Informed consideration can be given to grounds for appeal. "Interested members of the public can satisfy themselves that justice has been done, or not, as the case may be" (para. 24). "Trial courts, where the essential findings of facts and drawing of inferences are done, can only be held properly to account if the reasons for their adjudication are transparent and accessible to the public and to the appellate courts" (para. 15).
[30] It appears that the entire focus of the trial judge's reasons in this case was whether the Crown had proved that the appellants were guilty of conspiracy. She understood the issues, which were whether the Crown had proved a conspiracy and whether the appellants were members of it. My main problem with the trial judge's reasons is that she made so few findings of fact on her way to the conclusory finding that each appellant was guilty as charged - meaning guilty of conspiracy and the individual counts of fraud over $5,000 with which each appellant was charged. Consequently, the facts on which she based the convictions are lacking. Because reasons for conviction were not patent on the record, I am unable to determine the analytical path she followed in convicting the appellants. Consequently, the trial judge failed to provide sufficient reasons to allow for meaningful appellate review.
No comments:
Post a Comment