Errors on a preliminary inquiry

R. v. Hawley, 2012 ONCA 528 was released this morning.  It has helpful language about the nature of potential errors on a preliminary inquiry:

 

[10]       In R. v. Sazant, [2004] 3 S.C.R., the court distinguished between an error in law, or an error as to the sufficiency of evidence offered at the preliminary inquiry, both non-jurisdictional errors not reviewable on a motion to quash and various jurisdictional errors all of which involved a preliminary inquiry judge going beyond the very limited function assigned under s. 548 of the Criminal Code.  In Sazant, McLachlin C.J. provided examples of jurisdictional error at para. 25 of her reasons.  These included drawing inferences from the evidence rather than determining what inferences could reasonably be drawn.  The distinction is important because if the inferences urged by the Crown are within the field of inferences that could reasonably be drawn, the preliminary inquiry judge must commit for trial even if those are not the inferences that the preliminary inquiry judge would draw.