Caroline Alphonso
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Jul. 23, 2010 10:15AM EDT Last updated on Friday, Jul. 23, 2010 2:27PM EDT
Individuals are entitled to compensation if their charter rights are violated even if authorities act in good faith, the Supreme
The court upheld $5,000 in damages awarded to Alan Cameron Ward, a veteran Vancouver lawyer who was detained by police in 2002 on suspicion that he intended to toss a pie at then-prime minister Jean Chrétien.
“I’m relieved and pleased. It’s been a long eight years,” Mr. Cameron said Monday after the ruling. “It clarifies that Charter rights are important and the violation of them may attract monetary compensation in suitable cases.”
In its ruling, the court is clear that trivial Charter violations should not entitle a claimant to damages.
“ I conclude that damages may be awarded for charter breach ... where appropriate and just,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in her ruling.
“The first step in the inquiry is to establish that a Charter right has been breached. The second step is to show why damages are a just and appropriate remedy, having regard to whether they would fulfill one or more of the related functions of compensation, vindication of the right, and/or deterrence of future breaches.
“At the third step, the state has the opportunity to demonstrate, if it can, that countervailing factors defeat the functional considerations that support a damage award and render damages inappropriate or unjust. The final step is to assess the quantum of the damages.”
Lawyers say this marks the first time that monetary damages can be awarded for Charter violations even if authorities were following orders, a ruling that will likely have implications in G20 lawsuits.
Julian Falconer, who is representing several people who've made complaints in summit-related incidents involving police, said the highest court has confirmed authorities can’t hide behind orders. Mr. Falconer acted as an intervener in the Ward case on behalf of the Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto.
“The Ward judgement is extraordinarily timely in that there is now no doubt that in serious cases of serious charter damages, the fact that the police make a claim that they’re acting in good faith or under orders is no longer a defence to an entitlement to compensation for human
“The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected the notion that good faith grants some kind of immunity to state actors who engage in human rights violations.”
Mr. Ward alleged that he was improperly strip-searched and jailed for several hours in 2002 after Vancouver police arrested him not far from where Mr. Chrétien was speaking.
Mr. Chrétien visited the city in August of that year. As he approached a structure called the Millennium Gate in the Chinatown section of Vancouver, police received a report that somebody in the crowd intended to throw a pie at him.
A similar incident had taken place at the same location two years earlier.
Officers became suspicious of Mr. Ward, arrested him over his loud protests, and took him to Vancouver city jail. He was strip-searched and held in a jail cell for almost five hours as his car was being impounded and searched.
He subsequently sued the city and the province of British Columbia for violations of his rights.
The B.C. Attorney-General was unable for comment Friday, a spokesman said.