[25] Voici la description que formulent les auteurs de l’ouvrage Charter Remedies in Canadian Criminal Cases de la jurisprudence à l’égard de ces problématiques :
There is authority for finding an abuse of process that justifies a stay of proceedings where the accused’s right against arbitrary detention under section 9 has been breached by egregious “over-holding”- that is, detaining the accused in police custody, post-arrest, for longer than is reasonable or longer than is permitted by the relevant provisions of the Code. In R v Simpson, the Supreme Court reinstated a stay granted by a provincial court judge where the police had failed to comply with section 503(1)(a), which requires that "where a justice is available" an accused is to be brought before a justice "without unreasonable delay and in any event within [24 hours]." However, in R v Mangat, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned a stay that had been granted where the accused was held at the station for nearly 26 hours before being taken to court for a bail hearing. A sentence reduction has sometimes been held to be an adequate lesser remedy.
The over-holding issue has often arisen in alcohol-driving prosecutions, where the accused was held in custody at the police station after failing a breath test even though they wished to leave and had a responsible adult available to pick them up. Holding a person in custody overnight solely on the basis of a high blood-alcohol level without considering other factors favouring release will likely amount to a breach of the section 9 right against arbitrary detention. However, courts have generally been reluctant to grant stays of proceedings in these circumstances. Sometimes exclusion of the breath-sample evidence collected during the accused's detention has been found to be the appropriate remedy.
It has been held that a police policy requiring all persons charged with domestic assaults to be held for a bail hearing rather than being released from the station amounted to a "systemic abdication" of the responsibility to apply section 498 of the Code and a serious breach of the Charter. However, the appellate courts held that the trial judge properly exercised his remedial discretion in granting "4 for 1" credit for time spent in pre-sentence custody rather than a stay of proceedings. Likewise, the failure to release from the police station because of non-residency in the jurisdiction has been held to violate section 9. Where this was shown to have been the result of a systemic training issue, a stay of proceedings was granted.
Relatedly, the abuse of process doctrine has also been invoked where the accused has been brought to court in a timely fashion but the court has failed to proceed with the bail hearing within a reasonable time. Lesser remedies, such as costs awards or enhanced credit for pre-sentence custody, will usually be preferred to the drastic remedy of a stay[5].
[Le soulignement est ajouté] [Les appels de notes sont supprimés]
[26] Par ailleurs, dans son ouvrage Constitutional Remedies in Canada, le professeur Roach écrit :
The use of a stay of proceedings as a remedy for violations of ss. 8 and 9 of the Charter has been controversial. This issue typically arises when an unconstitutional search or detention does not produce evidence that can be excluded under s. 24(2)[6].
[Le soulignement est ajouté]
[30] Tout prévenu doit comparaître dans un délai de 24 heures.
[31] Dans l’arrêt R. c. Storrey[7], le juge Cory doit déterminer si la détention de 18 heures de l’accusé dans cette affaire était arbitraire, il adopte l’interprétation du juge Martin de la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario dans l’arrêt R. v. Koszulap[8] selon lequel l’art. 503 « impose à la police l'obligation de conduire la personne devant un juge de paix sans retard injustifié et […] les 24 heures représentent simplement la durée maximale du retard »[9].
[6] Section 503(1)(a) provides a dual time limit for the holding of the bail hearing. The detained person must be taken before a justice a) without unreasonable delay, and b) in any event no later than 24 hours after the person was arrested. As will be seen (infra, para. 9) the respondent was detained for approximately 35 hours before he was taken before a justice, resulting in his application for a stay of proceedings.
[7] Section 503(1)(a) does not provide that the police can always hold a detained person for 24 hours; that is just the outside limit of what is “unreasonable delay”: R. v E.W., 2002 NFCA 49 at paras. 13-5, 168 CCC (3d) 38; R. v Precourt (1976), , 1976 CanLII 692 (ON CA), 18 OR (2d) 714 at p. 722 (CA). […]
[33] Dans l’arrêt R. v. Poirier[11], la Cour d’appel de l’Ontario décrit l’objet poursuivi par l’article 503 du Code criminel et souligne l’importance de la supervision judiciaire qu’entraîne la comparution selon le délai de 24 heures prévu dans cet article :
[51] Section 503(1) of the Criminal Code requires a peace officer who arrests a person, with or without a warrant, to bring the person before a justice of the peace, where a justice is available, without unreasonable delay or in any event within 24 hours of arrest.
[…]
[57] Section 503 reflects an important fundamental right in our society, namely, the liberty of the subject, which is not to be taken away except in accordance with the law: R. v. Simpson (1994), 1994 CanLII 4528 (NL CA), 88 C.C.C. (3d) 377 (N.L.C.A.), at p. 386-87, rev’d on other grounds, 1995 CanLII 120 (CSC), [1995] 1 S.C.R. 449. In holding that the accused’s detention was arbitrary in R. v. Truchanek (1984), 1984 CanLII 5683 (BC SC), 39 C.R. (3d) 137 (B.C. Co. Ct.), Hogarth Co. Ct. J. stated, at pp. 170-71 :
[E]ven if the detention was but for hours, even if the detention was to obtain evidence of the commission of a serious crime, the deliberate illegal refusal to present [the accused] according to law was in my view a matter of vital importance for the people of this community, as it opens up to the police the idea that any one of us who has the misfortune to be arrested could be held for any length of time in order to extract a confession, to locate evidence and, for that matter, for any other purpose at their whim.
[58] Compliance with s. 503 is not simply a matter of form. Nor does it matter that the appellant may not likely have been released by a justice of the peace while the bedpan vigil search was being conducted. If the police had complied with s. 503, the manner in which the appellant continued to be detained would have been subject to court supervision. The appellant’s detention would have changed from being a detention pursuant to the execution of the general warrant to a court monitored detention that ensured the ongoing protection of the appellant’s Charter rights.
[Le soulignement est ajouté]
[34] Dans l’arrêt R. v. Reilly[12], la Cour d’appel de l’Alberta réfère dans un premier temps aux observations du juge en chef Wagner dans l’arrêt Myers où celui-ci souligne que « [l]es retards dans les affaires ordinaires de détention et de mise en liberté sous caution sont une manifestation de la culture de complaisance que notre Cour a dénoncée dans l’arrêt Jordan et il faut y remédier »[13].
[35] La Cour d’appel de l’Alberta ajoute que les exigences de l’article 503 doivent être respectées en tout temps :
The time limits in the Criminal Code must be met on time, every time, for every detained person. The government must indeed design a system that is able to handle “any bail volume” at any time. Section 503(1) of the Criminal Code and s. 9 of the Charter do not say that they only apply “when funding permits”, or that they are inapplicable during the implementation of new procedures. The government should also recall that not only must all detainees be taken before a justice within 24 hours, they must also be given a hearing “without unreasonable delay”. Consistently meeting the 24 hour limit is a good starting point, but the government’s work will not necessarily end when that is accomplished[14].
[36] La détention du prévenu qui ne survient pas durant la limite maximale de 24 heures fixée par l’art. 503 est arbitraire au sens de l’article 9 de la Charte, car une détention illégale est nécessairement arbitraire[15].
[37] Cela dit, si la détention arbitraire, qui résulte de la non-comparution d’un prévenu durant le délai de 24 heures, ne permet pas à l’État de recueillir des éléments de preuve qui exige que les tribunaux se dissocient du fruit de cette conduite illégale et arbitraire en excluant les éléments de preuve ainsi acquis, il faut reconnaître qu’une telle détention ne met pas en cause le droit à une défense pleine et entière et l’équité du procès d’un accusé.
[38] Certes, la détention arbitraire qui découle d’une violation systémique et connue des carences du système de comparution des prévenus qui ne respecte pas le délai prévu par le Code criminel révèle, comme l’affirme le juge en chef Wagner dans l’arrêt Myers, une culture de complaisance à l’égard de ces retards et délais.
[39] La banalisation de ces retards depuis plusieurs années s’avère extrêmement préoccupante.
[40] Toutefois, dans la présente affaire, la capacité de l’État d’établir la culpabilité de M. Flores n’est pas affectée par le retard de celui-ci à comparaître.
[41] Comme l’explique la Cour d’appel de l’Alberta dans l’arrêt Reilly, l’équité du procès et le droit à une défense pleine et entière ne sont pas en cause, car la tenue du procès ne perpétue pas la nature de la violation qui découle du délai de comparution et elle ne l’aggrave pas non plus :
[30] The first branch of the Babos test is not engaged here, because the respondent’s right to a fair trial is not jeopardized, and holding a trial will not perpetuate the breach. The breach arising from the respondent’s detention for longer than 24 hours will also not be aggravated by the trial.
[42] En bref, aussi choquante et intolérable que soit la comparution tardive des prévenus, un problème identifié depuis plusieurs années, celle-ci ne met pas en cause le sens du franc-jeu des poursuites criminelles si l’État n’a pas profité de ce délai pour améliorer sa capacité de prouver la culpabilité de M. Flores.
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