Police must facilitate access to counsel promptly on detention

R. v. Taylor, 2014 SCC 50:

[24]                          The duty to inform a detained person of his or her right to counsel arises "immediately" upon arrest or detention (Suberu, at paras. 41-42), and the duty to facilitate access to a lawyer, in turn, arises immediately upon the detainee's request to speak to counsel.  The arresting officer is therefore under a constitutional obligation to facilitate the requested access to a lawyer at the first reasonably available opportunity.  The burden is on the Crown to show that a given delay was reasonable in the circumstances (R. v. Luong (2000), 271 A.R. 368, at para. 12 (C.A.)).  Whether a delay in facilitating access to counsel is reasonable is a factual inquiry.

[25]                          This means that to give effect to the right to counsel, the police must inform detainees of their s. 10 (b) rights andfacilitate access to those rights where requested, both without delay. This includes "allowing [the detainee] upon his request to use the telephone for that purpose if one is available" (Manninen, at p. 1242). And all this because the detainee is in the control of the police and cannot exercise his right to counsel unless the police give him a reasonable opportunity to do so (see Brownridge v. The Queen, [1972] S.C.R. 926, at pp. 952-53).

[26]                          Until the requested access to counsel is provided, it is uncontroversial that there is an obligation on the police to refrain from taking further investigative steps to elicit evidence (R. v. Ross, [1989] 1 S.C.R. 3, at p. 12; R. v. Prosper, [1994] 3 S.C.R. 236, at p. 269). 

[27]                          The majority in the Court of Appeal was of the view that in light of Cst. MacGillivray's acknowledgement that he could have provided his own cell phone, the "'mistake' in failing to provide it" gave rise to a breach of s. 10 (b).  The Crown takes issue with this finding, and I agree that in light of privacy and safety issues, the police are under no legal duty to provide their own cell phone to a detained individual.

[28]                          But the police nonetheless have both a duty to provide phone access as soon as practicable to reduce the possibility of accidental self-incrimination and to refrain from eliciting evidence from the individual before access to counsel has been facilitated.  While s. 10 (b) does not create a "right" to use a specific phone, it does guarantee that the individual will have access to a phone to exercise his right to counsel at the firstreasonable opportunity.