The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday reprimanded the Quebec Court of Appeal for “erroneously” accusing a lower court of holding a secret trial when “no secret trial was held in this case.”
All nine justices of the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously stated that “the very concept of a ‘secret trial’ does not exist in Canada.”
“The expression is actually [an unnamed person] “The defendant had been convicted following a secret criminal proceeding, a situation that has caused anxiety to the public and the media,” the ruling said.
“Public confidence in the justice system has also been eroded,” the report said.
The case concerns a police informant who was charged with criminal offences related to a crime for which he was assisting police in an investigation.
The Supreme Court said on Friday that a procedural error had occurred as a result of attempts to keep the identity of the informant secret.
These errors were later “falsely condemned” by the Quebec Court of Appeal, raising concerns among the public, the media and the courts themselves about the possibility of secret trials in Canada.
The case began when the unnamed police informant made his first court appearance to answer the charges sometime before 2022. During that appearance, the informant’s lawyers filed a motion to stay the case in court, arguing that the state had acted improperly in filing the charges and was taking too long to get to trial.
To protect the anonymity of the informants, the judge presiding over the case ordered the trial to proceed behind closed doors, with no notice to the media. All allegations, exhibits and records were kept confidential and not entered into the court docket.
When the judge rejected the motion and convicted the police informer, the decision was not given a file number and was not made public.
Accusations of “Secret Trials”
The case reappeared on the public docket in February 2022, when the Quebec Court of Appeal set aside the conviction, finding there was an abuse of process by the province.
The Quebec Court of Appeal released its decision but with a sealing order blacking out any information that could identify the informant.
In March 2022, the court released a redacted version of its ruling that strongly criticized the decision to prosecute in the first place. However, what caught everyone’s attention was the court’s harsh criticism of the secrecy surrounding the original trial.
“The judge’s detailed decision did not provide any official figures, witnesses were questioned outside court, the parties asked the judge to base his decision on the records in a closed hearing, and the decision was kept secret,” the ruling said.
“In short, no trace of this trial exists other than the memories of those involved,” the Quebec Court of Appeal said.
