Case information

Charter of Rights – Criminal law – Procedural fairness – Adequacy of reasons – Enforcement – Exclusion of evidence – Whether Court of Appeal breached procedural fairness by raising ex parte issue that was not in dispute, without advance notice and without asking parties questions – Whether Court of Appeal failed to provide adequate reasons, from factual and legal standpoint, for its refusal to determine whether admission of evidence would have brought administration of justice into disrepute, even though this was new element analyzed – Whether Court of Appeal erred in interpreting first branch of analysis of s. 24(2) of Charter – Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s. 24(2).

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

In August 2018, a vehicle driven by the applicant, Mr. Ondo Mendame, in which there were two passengers was stopped by police officers from the Service de police de la Ville de Québec (“SPVQ”) on the basis of information transmitted on SPVQ radio concerning a fraud. The three individuals were detained for investigative purposes and ultimately arrested. The vehicle was then searched. The applicant was charged with several criminal offences relating to fraud and conspiracy. He applied under s. 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to exclude all the evidence collected after he was stopped by the SPVQ officers, who, he argued, had not acted in compliance with the powers and duties conferred on them by the common law. The Superior Court granted the motion in part and declared that the applicant’s constitutional rights had been infringed but that, in the circumstances, the infringements did not bring the administration of justice into disrepute within the meaning of s. 24(2) of the Charter and the items seized should be admitted into evidence. The applicant was convicted of the offences charged. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.