|
|
|
| NEWS > 28 November 2008 |
Other related articles:
Racist force rejected Sikh off
A Sikh policeman is set to receive a five-figure damages award for racial discrimination after a police force rejected a dozen applications from him to join.
PC Sangram Singh-Bhacker, who comes from an Indian family in Manchester, had been trying to join the city’s police since 1990. He had served with five other forces in England but Greater Manchester Police (GMP) repeatedly refused to allow him to transfer to work in his home city.
In February last year Andrew Marston, its head of personnel, told him in a letter: “I am not prepared to consider you as a potential transfer... Read more
|
 Article sourced from
|
|
Toronto Star - Ontario, Canada
28 November 2008
This article appeared in the above title/site.
To view it in its entirity click this link.
|
EiP
|
Police corruption: Major chang
Better funded defence lawyers, newly empowered judges and more collaboration between police and prosecutors are some of the ingredients for stopping Ontario criminal trials from spinning out of control, a new report recommends.
The report, prepared by Patrick LeSage, a former chief justice, and Michael Code, a University of Toronto law professor, is to be released today at Queen's Park.
The two were commissioned to do the study last February by Attorney General Chris Bentley after the collapse of a massive corruption trial involving Toronto police officers.
What went wrong in the police case, however, was not part of their review. Instead, they were asked to look at the broader problems affecting big criminal prosecutions, which are becoming increasingly common in Ontario.
Although critics have blamed failures in the corruption case and other high-profile prosecutionson mismanagement and poor judgment in Ontario's Crown law office, the LeSage-Code report paints a different picture.
The criminal justice system simply hasn't responded to huge changes in the trial process in recent decades, brought about in part by the Charter and rulings by the Supreme Court, the report suggests.
As a result, the system is often crippled by pre-trial battles over issues such as the disclosure of evidence and acrimony between junior lawyers. Judges are often too timid to rein them in.
"Expertise should be recognized as a necessity in the long complex criminal case," LeSage and Code say in their report.
The report calls on Legal Aid Ontario to develop a new tariff that provides for "enhanced" and "exceptional" fees in longer, complex cases, structured so only "the most able" defence lawyers are entitled to apply.
The recommendations also call for trial judges to be appointed early and that their schedules be "protected" so they will not be drawn away on other trials.
When that's not possible, another judge overseeing the general management of the case should be given power to rule on pre-trial issues. This would require a Criminal Code amendment, the report says.
The major problem in the police corruption case, according to the trial judge, was a failure to disclose evidence to defence lawyers in a timely manner.
Code and LeSage recommend strict timelines for resolving disclosure disputes and ensuring police officers use standardized procedures and computer software.
Crown attorneys should assist police with the preparation of disclosure and provide advice on "manageable size and focus for a successful prosecution," they say.
|
| |
 EiP Comments:
|
|---|
|
| |
* We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper or periodical. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and we will remove the article. The articles republished on this site are provided for the purposes of research , private study, criticism , review, and the reporting of current events' We have no wish to infringe the copyright of any newspaper , periodical or other works. If you feel that we have done so then please contact us with the details and where necessary we will remove the work concerned.
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
 |
Ethics in Policing, based in the UK, provide information and advice about the following:
Policing Research | Police News articles | Police Corruption | International Policing | Police Web Sites | Police Forum | Policing Ethics | Police Journals | Police Publications |
|
| |
|
