Les principes majeurs en matière de divulgation de la preuve

R. v. Trang, 2002 ABQB 744 (CanLII)

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[402]         The most significant of the above noted principles and propositions which I find applicable to the Applicants’ allegations can be conveniently summarized as follows:

	1	The Crown has a continuous duty to disclose the fruits of all investigations in its possession leading to the charges facing the Applicants, unless clearly irrelevant or privileged;
	2	It is reasonable for the Crown to expect that Defence counsel will be diligent in pursuing disclosure, and that requests for additional production, particularly in massive investigation cases, will be responsibly focussed;
	3	In the event of a dispute, the information in dispute may be reviewed by the court. If the court finds a breach of the Crown’s duty to disclose, the court may order production;
	4	In assessing whether the Crown has met its disclosure obligation, the Court must measure the reasonableness of the Crown’s performance in terms of the size and complexity of the case, and the volume of disclosure; a standard of perfection, or even a guarantee of effective disclosure, whatever the circumstances, is too high a standard;
	5	There is, as yet, no recognized manner of application of the disclosure principles to the “big case” investigation file; but particularly in those cases where the Crown has made extensive disclosure, additional production requests by the defence should be responsibly focussed;
	6	In complex and considerably large prosecutions, particularly where the disclosure is voluminous and the investigations massive, the Crown necessarily is required to rely on the police to make determinations as to the relevance of the disclosure and to fulfil their duty by providing the Crown with summaries of such disclosure. The Crown is also entitled to rely on information provided by the police regarding the contents of documents considered to be irrelevant. The Crown has an obligation to take reasonable steps to ascertain the existence of such information in the possession of the police, and the police have a concurrent obligation to assist and provide to the Crown such information;
	7	Notwithstanding 4, 5 and 6 above, the Crown must accept responsibility for suppression by the police of the fruits of their investigation