Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed* on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Wall v Judicial Committee of the Highwood Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, 2016 ABCA 255

[22] Accordingly, a court has jurisdiction to review the decision of a religious organization when a breach of the rules of natural justice is alleged. The respondent’s application raises numerous complaints regarding the process used by the appellants. He contends that he was not provided with particulars of the allegations again him or the process that he would face. He was not advised whether he could retain legal counsel or whether there would be a record of the proceedings. He also contends that he is entitled to written reasons of the decisions of the Judicial Committee and the Appeal Committee. On the basis of these allegations the Court of Queen’s Bench has jurisdiction to hear the application. We note as well that the respondent appears to have exhausted all avenues of appeal within the church so jurisdiction could also be found on that basis. Indeed, we were advised after the hearing that the respondent’s application for reinstatement had also be refused.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

2. R. v. Tsekouras, 2017 ONCA 290

[90] First, the scope of the search. The scope of the search of a cellphone or similar device incident to arrest must be tailored to the purpose for which it may lawfully be conducted. Not only the nature, but also the extent of the search performed on the cellphone or similar device must be truly incidental to the particular arrest for the particular offence. And so it is, at least as a general rule, that only recently sent or drafted emails, texts, photos and the call log may be examined. The reason is simple: only those sorts of items will have the necessary degree of connectedness to the purposes for which prompt examination of the device is authorized: Fearon, at para. 76. Investigators must be able to explain, within the limited purposes of search incident to arrest or with reference to some other valid purpose, what they searched and why they did so: Caslake, at para. 25.

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3. Toronto Police Services Board v Briggs, 2017 ONSC 1591

[30] The applicants argue that the legal issue raised in the Code Application is racial profiling with respect to the stop of the Respondent’s vehicle. They submit that the decision of the OCJ dealt with that issue and found that there was no racial profiling. They also take issue with the way in which the Tribunal characterized the Application as containing a series of allegations of Code breaches, rather than one breach. They submit that there was one allegation of racial profiling in stopping the vehicle. Events subsequent to the stop were the unlawful consequences of that stop if the Respondent had been pulled over because of his race.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

The most-consulted French-language decision was Ordre des dentistes du Québec c. Picard, 2016 QCCQ 14361

[118] Dans ce contexte et vu la preuve, le Tribunal conclut sans difficulté que lorsque le défendeur, après avoir examiné la bouche de madame Juteau, en plus des radiographies, affirme qu’elle a besoin de plombages là où elle a des caries, a des dents usées par grinchement, des infiltrations, des espaces devant être colmatés, une dent cassée devant être réparée, a besoin d’un traitement de canal, de ponts, et de couronnes, il pose autant de diagnostics que seul un dentiste est autorisé à poser.

(Check for commentary on CanLII Connects)

* As of January 2014 we measure the total amount of time spent on the pages rather than simply the number of hits; as well, a case once mentioned won’t appear again for three months.