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September 28, 2010

Simon Fodden

Text of the Bedford v. AG Canada Prostitution Case

As followers of Canadian legal news will know, a judge of the Ontario Superior Court today ruled that Canada's prostitution laws violate the Charter. To quote from the National Post story:

The judge struck down three sections of the Criminal Code that make it illegal to operate a “common bawdy house,” to profit from prostitution-related activities or “communicates” on the street for the purpose of prostitution. The provisions “force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person,” said the judge, in finding that the laws breached the Charter of Rights.

A PDF of Justice Himel's judgment in Bedford v. AG Canada is available online thanks to the University of Toronto's Sexual Diversity Blog. The 131 page PDF is an image file, but thoroughly legible even so.

Again, as a side note, I remark that the failure of the Ontario courts to put a digital copy of judgements online immediately leaves citizens at the mercy of news reports, unable to read the judgment for themselves. There is no technical excuse for the delay in online publication.

Simon Fodden is the founder of Slaw. He taught law at Osgoode Hall Law School for more than 30 years before he retired to focus on writing, publishing, and IT and law.
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6 Comments on “Text of the Bedford v. AG Canada Prostitution Case”

  1. Yosie Saint-Cyr says:
    September 28, 2010 at 9:45 pm

    Thanks for the link… I was waiting for this decision.

  2. Omar Ha-Redeye says:
    September 30, 2010 at 3:40 am

    And apparently many, many members of the public were looking for this decision.
    I've noticed a significant spike over the past few days in Google word searches for a combination of queries related to Himel J.
    I think I'll post it online as well to help them find it in a timely manner.

  3. Ethan says:
    October 1, 2010 at 7:41 am

    It was on Canlii the next day: http://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2010/2010onsc4264/2010onsc4264.html

  4. Louise says:
    January 18, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    Do you know if the french translation is available?

  5. Simon Fodden says:
    January 18, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    Louise, CanLII has no French translation, which leads me to believe that none is available. I believe there's no obligation—nor any funds–to translate trial level judgments in Ontario into the other official language.

  6. John Gregory says:
    January 18, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    Nor appeal decisions. Decisions of Ontario courts delivered in French are generally translated into English, at least in the Ontario Reports (so maybe the publishers do that, not the courts). Nor are decisions of Quebec courts given in French available in English. Way too expensive for the benefit.

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