Robson Crim Group Researchers to Launch Book: Privacy in Peril
Professor Richard Jochelson and Assistant Professor David Ireland will be launching their new book, Privacy in Peril: Hunter v Southam and the Drift from Reasonable Search Protections on Wed. Nov. 20 at 7:00 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park, in the Atrium.
Jochelson and Ireland, who teach Criminal Law and Evidence at the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of law, take a close look at the 1984 Supreme Court of Canada case Hunter v Southam, in which the SCC declared warrantless searches to be unreasonable under section 8 of the Charter. Police would henceforth require authorization based on “reasonable and probable grounds.” The decision promised to protect individuals from encroaching state power, but Jochelson and Ireland argue that while post-Hunter search and seizure law has strayed from the SCC decision and that the core principles of Dickson’s vision for section 8 rights have been diminished in an era of heightened security and expanding police powers, increasing citation of Hunter in the halls of justice offers hope that some protection of civil liberties will endure in the twenty-first century.