In general these are sensible changes that will not cause any major problems and will speed up the system.
Tories propose Criminal Code fixes; Rules for fingerprinting, prizefighting
among 'modernizations' to law
Janice Tibbetts
Ottawa Citizen , May 16, 2009
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson proposed a grab bag of changes to the Criminal Code on Friday, from allowing police to fingerprint suspects before charging them, to rewriting an outdated ban on prizefighting because it technically outlaws martial arts such as tae kwon do, judo and karate.
The proposed "modernization" legislation, the outcome of discussions with the provinces and territories, contains 40 amendments to Canadian law.
The bill also proposes creating a new crime to help stop individuals from
fleeing from province to province to avoid prosecution and provide police
with greater access to "telewarrants" so that they can phone a justice of the peace to obtain quick authority for search and seizure instead of making
a request in person.
"Crime is constantly evolving in Canada, so it is crucial that our criminal justice system evolves with it," Nicholson said Friday in a statement.
Nicholson's spokesman, Darren Eke, said that fingerprinting and photographing arrested suspects, a move designed to speed up the process at the police station, will only happen to those on the verge of being charged with indictable offences, which are Canada's most serious charges, comparable to U.S. felonies.
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
3 comments:
Little changes such as "allowing police to fingerprint suspects before charging" sound like an attack on civil liberties.
The police need more legal restrains, not less as they have demonstrated that they are incompetent thugs and don't respect the law.
James,
Some of these proposals are ok but definitely not this one:
"...from allowing police to fingerprint [& photograph] suspects before charging them..."
The author of this did not write the "photographing" part in her article, I added it.
I completely disagree with this as anyone arrested, even if innocent & never charged, will now be on record with the police & govt. To me this makes it too much like a police state. Just did a post on this at my blog.
I sort of agree with the fingerprinting point, but if the fingerprinting is really done only for indictable offences where there will be charges it actually save the accused a further trip to the police and may make sense, but I understand the unease.
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