This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the March/April 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.

An Ontario man will get a “do-over” of his criminal trial after the trial judge made a small but crucial error of speech.
Madame Justice Faye McWatt of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice was instructing a jury about the importance of the presumption of innocence just before they left the courtroom to consider their verdict. She said “It is only defeated if, and when, the Crown counsel has satisfied you beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Guilty – I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson – is guilty of the crime charged.”
Mr. Wilson’s counsel was not amused when the jury found her client guilty.  She filed an appeal, and noted “The trial judge erred in failing to order a mistrial or provide a curative instruction after mistakenly referring to the appellant as Mr. Guilty.”
The appeal will be held later this year.
 

This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the January/February 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
A Federal Court of Canada judge recently ruled that Mark Stables, who has been a permanent resident of Canada since he came from Scotland as a seven-year-old child, and who has no criminal record, cannot stay in Canada.
Justice de Montigny ruled that the government has the right to expel him because he is a high-ranking member of the Hells Angels.
Mr. Stables argued that the Hells Angels is not a criminal organization, but the Judge stated that the evidence is overwhelming that the Hells Angels is “first and foremost” an organization dealing in drug trafficking, extortion, theft and murder.
He wrote: “This is not a case where the applicant did not know the nature of the organization until it was too late – either he did not care or chose to be willfully blind to its activities. Clearly, the framers of the Charter [of Rights] could not have intended that the applicant’s membership in the Hells Angels could be protected through his freedom of association and expression, despite the overwhelming criminal history of the organization.” The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act allows for a person to be barred from Canada for “organized criminality”.
Stables v. Canada (Citizenship and Immigration) 2011 FC 1319 (CanLII).

This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the January/February 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
Four daughters who received nothing from their late father’s estate asked the British Columbia Supreme Court to vary his will.
William Werbenuk left his substantial estate to his only son, making no provision for his daughters.
The Judge stated that what was at issue was whether based on contemporary moral standards, adequate provision for proper maintenance and support was objectively considered by the father towards his daughters.
Justice Wong accepted evidence by the daughters that their father ruled the family home, and his wife and daughters by terror.
The son, on the other hand was “favoured and indulged.”
Justice Wong noted: “It is a testament to the strength of character and resilience of the plaintiffs that they rose above their upbringing and manifestly cared for their father.” He ruled that modern contemporary standards reject the father’s declared intention to disinherit his daughters, and that they had a valid moral claim to share in the family wealth.
He wrote: “The provisions of William Werbenuk’s will were not those of a judicious testator acting in accordance with society’s reasonable expectations of what a judicious parent would do in the circumstances by reference to contemporary community standards. The Judge divided the estate between the five siblings.
Werbenuk v. Werbenuk Estate, 2010 BCSC 1678

This blog post is an excerpt from Bench Press in the January/February 2012 issue of LawNow magazine. To view the magazine and subscribe please go to www.lawnow.org.
A Court of King’s Bench justice in Saskatchewan recently ruled that a woman who gave birth to a baby girl in 2009 is not the child’s mother.
The child was conceived through sperm from one partner in a same-sex marriage and an ovum from an anonymous donor. “Mary” carried the baby to term. The same sex couple and Mary asked the province’s Registrar of Vital Statistics to remove the birth mother’s name from the child’s birth certificate.
Justice Jacelyn Ann Ryan-Froslie agreed.
She wrote: “It is clear from the definition of ‘mother’ contained in the Vital Statistics Act 2009, that Mary, the gestational carrier, is Sarah’s mother for the purposes of that act as she is the woman from whom Sarah was delivered. Naming her as Sarah’s mother on the registration of live birth raises a presumption that she is also Sarah’s biological mother. In this case, I am satisfied that on a balance of probabilities, that Mary, the gestational carrier, is not Sarah’s biological mother. I am also satisfied that neither (John nor Bill) nor Mary ever intended that Mary would assume any parental rights or obligations with respect to Sarah. As such, a declaration that Mary is not Sarah’s mother is warranted.”