Peter Dostal

Mostly criminal justice topics. All opinions are my own. RTs, likes = “interesting”. I won't necessarily reply to your comments. See also @CrimLawNotebook

[Christopher Nardi @ChrisGNardi]

NEW: Manitoba Superior Court Chief Justice Glenn Joyal is the newest member of the Supreme Court, PM Mark Carney announced Monday morning.
Last week, I reported Joyal was one of two (and favourite) finalists for the top court job.

https://t.co/sugdoYAJSu

[Federal Court @FedCourt_CAN_en]

The Court has issued the first judicial authorization for CSIS to use threat reduction measures to protect critical infrastructure from foreign adversaries.

News Bulletin: https://t.co/eA4HtSJ4H3

[Law360 Canada @law360ca]

Top judge backs Jordan juggernaut, warns bar against filing fake AI-generated precedents in court
https://t.co/CdmCqCEN58

[Peter Dostal @pjdostal]

Vince Paris!

[Ministry of the Attorney General @ONAttorneyGen]

The Ontario government is pleased to announce the appointment of three new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice, effective June 18, 2026.

🔗: https://t.co/IPtJlZQ0Wx

[Ministry of the Attorney General @ONAttorneyGen]

The Ontario government is pleased to announce the appointment of three new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice, effective June 18, 2026.

🔗: https://t.co/IPtJlZQ0Wx

[CourtNewsUK @CourtNewsUK]

Here's retired Old Bailey judge Peter Rook giving a statement after his daughter's killer was jailed. Victim Annabel Rook ran a charity supporting victims of gender based violence https://t.co/bBfy8dbdIL

[Sam Corbishley @corbishleys]

After weeks' spent focusing on judges getting it wrong in their sentencing remarks, here is Mr Justice Bright with a moving tribute to a victim.

In fact, he refuses to use that word, or complainant or survivor, saying they're 'demeaning'.

He instead refers to her as the 'hero'.

[A. Mando @AMandoSch]

Being a lawyer is saying "I just need to get through this hearing/deposition/other appointment this week and then things will calm down" for forty years and before you know it you are 70 years old telling people that you have been practicing law for 40 years with no Bar Grievances filed, and finally your reward arrives in the form of a heart attack or a stroke out at your work desk and the state Bar finally takes an action on your status but it's just to mark you "deceased."

[Maxi @AllForProgress_]

Here's a good joke for your Bank Holiday.

A British magistrate identified in court papers only as "Taylor" has been deciding convictions and sentences for more than 100 British defendants from his home.

In Portugal.

The arrangement, conducted under the Single Justice Procedure - which is the streamlined process by which a magistrate can deal with minor offences without an open court hearing - was running for years before anyone in the British legal system noticed it was happening, and would still be running today if a fellow magistrate had not, at considerable personal cost, refused to take part and raised the alarm.

The whistleblower in question is a serving magistrate who had concluded, after some study, that what was being done was unlawful. He is now suing the Ministry of Justice. He alleges that, having flagged the practice internally, he was bullied, ostracised and progressively excluded from the work he had volunteered to do.

The only thing about this that's a surprise is that it's been exposed at all.

This sort of baroque, even sublime level of piss-taking is, by now, a recognisable British institutional ritual.

So, I must concede, is the reaction to it. An individual notices something is wrong, says so through the proper channels, is treated by the institution as the problem, gets bullied half to death, and ends up in court.

We saw it with Alan Bates, with the consultants at the Letby ward, with the surveyors at Grenfell, and now with this magistrate, who has the additional indignity of having had to bring his case while his colleague was, presumably, still in the Algarve.

The Ministry of Justice's response is the part of the story that most repays attention. Asked, by Sir Jeremy Hunt MP in Parliament, whether more than 100 convictions secured by a magistrate sitting from a different country might need to be revisited, the Ministry stated that there were "no grounds to suggest that any case where the magistrate conducted remote hearings from abroad was unlawful or needed nullification."

The Senior Presiding Judge then advised, in a separate communication, that magistrates and judges should not, in fact, be conducting court proceedings from outside the United Kingdom, the diplomatic objections of the foreign states involved being one of the more obvious reasons. The two positions are not formally in conflict. They are, however, the same Ministry saying that an arrangement which the senior judiciary has now banned for the future was, until ten minutes ago, completely fine. Totally alright.

One hundred British defendants (at the lower end of the magistrates' jurisdiction, sure, but the lower end is where most people in this country actually encounter the courts) have now been sentenced by a man from his holiday home. When the Ministry of Justice found out, it concluded that the arrangement was fine. When the Senior Presiding Judge found out, he concluded that it was not. The whistleblower who exposed the whole thing has, predictably, been treated by his colleagues as the problem and is now suing his own Ministry. The convictions, meanwhile, stand.

I just hope I get the screenplay rights to this one. It's just too perfect an encapsulation of what the British genius, once responsible for the architecture of the world and man's command over nature, has been reduced to: running obvious abuses of office, rank, and authority for years under the noses of the people paid to notice but too thick or venal to actually notice.

If we weren't being consistently saved by single people, heroic individuals, willing to throw themselves into the meat grinder to expose these charlatan prats by a single individual at his own cost, it's absolutely frightening to imagine where we'd be. In respect of abuses like this, like Chagos, like the rape gangs.

Anyway, the arrangement ends and the convictions stand. The magistrate will fly back from Portugal (he's still sitting!). The Ministry of Justice will issue a procedural note. The whistleblower goes to tribunal.

It's not only time we root-and-branched the criminal justice system in this country - in which 'criminal justice' has come to imply an affinity for the criminal, just as the 'Taylor Swift Holy Dinner Party & Human Affairs Circuit' implies an affinity for Taylor Swift - but our approach to whistleblowing as well.

These are the only people preventing our slide into barbarism, as things stand. And whistleblowers who exposed dysfunctions of this kind will, under a Progress government, be honoured for the public service they have performed, and the institutions that punished them will be held to account for the punishing.

[Prof. Shamika Ravi @ShamikaRavi]

Why judges need training in Economics.
An excellent study.
https://t.co/PeRqSAgE8O

[Michael Lesage @michaelsfirm]

This case also indicates everything wrong with the Ontario court system. The fact that a case can drag on for decades, think of the huge amount of wasted resources all around.

[Dr Donald J Netolitzky KC @DNetolitzky]

I draw flak for saying that self-represented litigants (SRLs) are a privileged category in Canadian law. Not everyone is equal before the Courts. The Supreme Court of Canada just emphasized that.

In Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia the SCC invented a new tort, "intimate partner violence". I'm not going to talk much about that, but as a super-quick summary, IPV is a basis for one partner in a relationship claims for injury and money compensation where the other partner took coercive control of the intimate relationship that impeded the activities and dignity of the targeted partner. I won’t try to express the scope of what that means. The majority decision is a honking 249 paragraphs. Let’s just say the majority decision by Justice Kasirer casts a very broad net to include everything from physical violence, to sexual demands, to financial control, to giving the other partner “the silent treatment”. This is “violence”.

Is this a good idea or not? I dunno - not my field. Some family subject lawyers are going to get filthy rich off litigating these claims though. I could talk about the implications of this kind of personal injury on certain cultural subcommunities but ... I’m not going to.

There’s something else that caught my attention. The way this litigation developed is unusual. The successful divorcing partner was self-represented in most of the trial proceeding. So this is an instance of a big win by an SRL over a represented party, which is interesting.

But what is even more noteworthy is the SRL did not argue the new tort of IPV exists, but did raise claims she had been injured by her (admittedly and unpleasantly) abusive spouse. Instead, the judge hearing the trial basically decided on her own to raise this issue, and created the IPV tort issues. That is really quite unusual, because the usual rule in common law jurisdictions like Canada is that the litigants “own” the lawsuit. They set the issues, the facts, and the judge is basically a sphinx who sits and listens, then with a flourish and legal reasons announces the winner.

Here, the judge took on an enlarged role, creating a new issue, and then defining a novel class of tort law. That’s normally forbidden, “descending into the arena from the bench and advocating for the self-represented litigant”, a passage from the three dissenting judges who concluded this litigation was improper, and the appeal was inappropriate and unfair as a result.

But the majority decision - and the new rule in Canada - is that judges have a much broader potential role with SRLs. Here’s the critical paragraph (62) cut down for clarity:

The fact that [the wife] was self-represented provides additional context to understanding how the trial proceeded. ... family law rules provide judges with the flexibility “to deal with cases justly” through “active management of cases” ... which may include “the raising of substantive and evidentiary issues” ... It is of course true that “[a] self-represented party cannot expect special treatment if they chose to represent themselves” ... The trial judge underscored that [the wife] “must be held to the same standard as a party represented at trial” ... Nevertheless, judges presiding over family law matters must be alive to barriers that self-represented litigants face, particularly where domestic violence is alleged ... In this context where judges are called on to take “a practical and principled approach to pleadings”, the emphasis on substance over form takes on particular significance ... The trial judge plainly acted within her authority, with due sensitivity to [the wife’s] status as a self-represented litigant in a family law proceeding, and [the husband] suffered no prejudice associated with what he alleged as procedural unfairness.

So after subtracting the kind of wishy-washy provisos, as I read this paragraph, the fact the wife and successful party was an SRL meant that a judge had the right, if not the obligation, to take control of the proceeding, introduce new issues, invent new law, and award a large sum on that basis ($150K, cut down to $100 on appeal).

And the dissenting three judges point and bounce around furiously that this isn’t the rules. And they’re right. This is pretty dramatic development. According to the new standard, when dealing with an SRL judges have an expanded authority to intervene, point the litigation in a new direction, and develop law and issues that were never argued by the parties. The trigger? That one party was vulnerable and self-represented.

Now, as the passage I quoted shows, this expanded role of the judge as owner of the litigation is positioned in a family context. But ... shouldn’t this also apply anywhere an SRL is disadvantaged? A refugee with limited resources and language barriers? A self-represented criminal accused? A person with psychiatric issues?

Maybe.

So, previously the SCC has “endorsed” something called the “Statement of Principles on Self-represented Litigants and Accused Persons” (Canadian Judicial Council, 2006) that said that deadlines do not really apply to SRLs, and that SRLs should not be as strictly required to follow procedure and form, for example: “Judges should ensure that procedural and evidentiary rules are not used to unjustly hinder the legal interests of self-represented persons.” SRL status gives special treatment.

And now the SCC has perhaps made it a requirement or obligation for trial judges to re-direct litigation outside the parameters set by the parties, where an SRL is disadvantaged.

Interesting.

The full decision is here: Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16 - https://t.co/d9zRx2daLp

[Investigative Journalism Bureau @UofT_ijb]

At least two Canadian lawyers were charged with possessing child sexual abuse material and other child exploitation offences last week. We looked at 39 cases where lawyers and judges were convicted or disciplined for child sexual offences or misconduct. Many continue to practice

[CrimeLine @CrimeLineLaw]

What happens when lawyers start delegating the thinking to AI? Justice Steven Hinkley examines the risks in a new op-ed. https://t.co/qEGQejf0jg @CBA_News

[Peter Dostal @pjdostal]

Great video of a strong cross https://t.co/94OMOkqsIQ

[CrimeLine @CrimeLineLaw]

"It has been clear since Bushell’s Case (1670) 124 ER 1006 that a juror may not be punished for refusing to return a guilty verdict having been directed to do so by a judge. The judgment of the court, in the report just cited, is not easy to analyse to extract a principle. This is partly because it deals with procedural issues which were current then but which are now understood only by legal historians. It is also affected by the regular use of Latin. It is, however, fairly clear that one of the complaints against the jury was that they had acquitted William Penn and William Mead “contra directionem Curiae in materia legis”, “contrary to the direction given by the court on a matter of law”. Later in the judgment, see pages 143-144, this expression is analysed and a number of difficulties with it are pointed out which arise in different contexts. Bushell’s Case may be best understood as recognising an immunity from punishment in respect of their decision as to what verdict to return, rather than a right to return verdicts in defiance of the evidence." Para [52] Webster & Others [2026] EWCA Crim 9; also endorsing what was said in Warner, namely 'Counsel agreed that participants in the trial process cannot lawfully invite a jury to apply the principle of jury equity or indeed to inform them of it. That prohibition is how the common law squares the jury equity and the oath that jurors are required to swear.'

[Katie Buehler @bykatiebuehler]

I sat down with veteran #SCOTUS litigator, Clement & Murphy PLLC's Paul Clement, to ask how he juggled arguing 9 cases in front of the justices this term (a personal record) while litigating high-stakes disputes against the Trump admin in lower courts. https://t.co/ktDwa1cYKs

[Australian Constitutional Law @ConstitLawAus]

"How Australia Set a Retirement Age for Judges", by @ALeighMP
https://t.co/Y642HM3gOh

[Peter Boghossian @peterboghossian]

Five Socratic-based questions to improve your thinking. 1/2

5. What would it take to change your mind? Be specific.

4. If your best reason for believing that was false, would you still believe? (That's called a "real reason check".)

[Dr Sylvia Kangara @SylviaKangara]

“A lawyer who has not studied economics and sociology is very apt to become a public enemy."

—Justice Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court, 1916–1939