R. v. Edmonton Sun, Calgary Sun

From Ad IDEM / CMLA

May 1, 2000

The Edmonton Sun and its sister paper the Calgary Sun were convicted of contempt for publishing the prior criminal record of an accused a few days after charges were laid against him, on the basis of potential prejudice to a future trial. This was so even though the Dagenais test would probably not have permitted a publication ban to be ordered for that information at that time.

Compare this Alberta trial decision (which we don't yet have online) with the ruling of the British Columbia Court of Appeal in R. v. Budai, Gill, and Kim.