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By Marshall Jones
So former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer gets “a break” in court by having charges of cocaine possession, impaired driving and speeding reduced to a single charge of careless driving. His penalty amounted to no more than a fine.
Cue the uninformed outrage: “There isn’t a Canadian I think who would believe that he or she, faced with the same set of facts that Mr. Jaffer was faced with, would have at the very least had to go through a trial,” said Joe Comartin of the New Democrats.
Too bad. This could have been a poster-child case for real issues with the justice system but instead of focussing on an important question, it’s being used for political purposes.
The problem here may be that the judge was appointed by a conservative government. It might have to do with Jaffer’s friends in the justice system. I doubt it, but maybe. It may also just be problems with the investigation.
But I know that a real problem is that you and I will never know which. The only person who knows is the Crown prosecutor herself and she isn’t talking about it.
I hear all kinds of complaints about police and judges and the “justice system” from all kinds of under-informed people who have never seen the inside of a courtroom and its complexities and delicacies. Some of those criticisms may certainly be warranted, maybe not, but at least the scrutiny is there.
It follows police around everywhere; no one misses the lights and sirens. Soon they will be walking around with cameras on their lapels and in their cars.
Judges never make simple pronouncements. They have a never-ending web of judgements and laws and rules they must follow with every action they take and just when they think they have them all, higher courts find new ones. They are required to justify everything they do and those decisions are picked over by smart, vested defence lawyers and tough appeals court judges.
What we should be talking about in the Jaffer case and many, many more is the immense power of Crown prosecutors. A hundred cases just like this one goes through our courthouse every day.
Want to know why the original charges were dropped? Too bad. How did they come to the plea bargain? Don’t even ask. Why the lighter charge? Drop dead.
They don’t have to tell you or me anything.
Their power rests in the awful word “discretion.” With every case across their desks—and there are way too many—they have to answer two questions. Is prosecution required in the public interest? And is there a substantial likelihood of conviction?
The first question is a little wishy-washy but still important. It negates the concept of winning or losing cases; let’s just do what’s right. The second negates the concept of pushing hopeless prosecutions that will simply frustrate everyone and cost a lot of money.
It’s a good system when it works. But wow is that a lot of wiggle room.
That’s why good defence lawyers don’t take chances with judges. Their best work is done convincing prosecutors to take the down side of both those questions.
Crown prosecutors have a very difficult job balancing those factors as well as many different disciplines and interests: victims, their families, the public, news media, police, justice, the accused, their families all under tight timelines and with huge caseloads.
But I have never seen prosecutors criticized for their decisions. Not by the public, not by judges, not by other prosecutors. They don’t have to defend their decisions to anyone and rarely, if ever, do.
So why did Rahim Jaffer get a lucky break in court? We have to deduce that the investigation had fatal flaws because we all know this was in the public interest. It was an opportunity not only for justice to be done but to be seen to be done, to bastardize the old maxim.
As someone whose job it is to see it be done, it’s a shame that this centre cog in the wheels of justice is never seen, never questioned and never understood even when we have a great opportunity to do so.
Marshall@kelowna.com
20 Responses to “Marshall Jones: Rahim Jaffer got a break? Please…”
Tags: careless driving, conservative MP, rahim jaffer, sentencing
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What a load of nonsense you put forward. If there was indeed “fatal flaws” in the investigation why isn’t Mr Jaffer suing for wrongful prosecution? If I was accused of holding some blow and it turned out to be false I and anybody else with the means to do so would be after the cops. Stop being a Tory criminal apologist.
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Are we as a society wanting to suspend someone’s Charter rights just ‘cos we don’t like ‘em very much, or we think they’re bigshots? If you want someone or something to be mad at, be mad at the OPP for not properly training their officers in how to properly handle a case like this. Anyone can check out a whole bunch of caselaw on CanLii on these very subjects, and see many cases where improper search-and-seizures resulted in successful Charter challenges and/or charges dropped. Just look up s.8 challenges, or sbs. 24(2). I as a layman know enough about the caselaw on the charges in question, to know for example that breathalyzer tests have to be given at least 15 mins apart. If they’re not, then procedure has not been followed, and a conviction is not likely. Surely our police forces have legal liason officers whose job it is to known the relevant caselaw, and be up to date on what the law demands in terms of procedure for the whole gamut of situations a front-line officer is likely to face, and to then impart this information in training new recruits. We should expect at least that much, right? If they don’t, then they can’t really blame the “system” when charges get dropped. For heaven’s sake, traffic cops often can’t even get the set fine or total payable amounts correct for traffic offences, even though they have a chart with the appropriate figures right in front of them as they’re writing it up!!
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Nice. So you think its absolutely ok to drink and drive while high on coke. Gotta love conservatives and their apologists. Nohting is too low to stoop to.
The guy pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, everyone knows that, yet he had the gaul to apologize for careless driving which isn’t wehat we all know he did. Thats the biggest insult of them all. He’s rubbing our noses in the fact he was let off very easy.
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Jibberish! The OPP this morning claims there were no errors in the investigation…..professional and thorough …
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For whom else, other then a member of the chattering class, would being found in possession of cocaine and failing a breathalyzer present “… no reasonable prospect of conviction …”?!?
His defeat as a Conservative in Alberta might have raised eyebrows elsewhere, but the voters of Edmonton-Strathcona knew better. Few people so richly deserve to spend one third of a five year sentence behind bars as this gentleman!
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Suing for wrongful prosecution??? What planet do you live on? No such thing. Charges are laid and dropped every day in this country.
Breathalizer results quashed routinely, small quantity drug possession never result in convictions. Those are the realities in Canada.
Got a break? Probably not, got what every Canadian usually gets under these circumstances. Basically a taxpayer funded scare to ensure he behaves better in the future.
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ultimately, Jaffer DID get a break. no question about it.
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Is cocaine now legal in Canada?
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I can’t believe our justice system is becoming corrupt. In the case of Mr Jaffer, if that happen to an ordinary citizins like us for sure he or she would be in prison right away facing charges. Mr. Jaffer should go to jail and should be fired from his job. What a shame our justice system is failing to do a better job.
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Rahim Jaffer deserves at least 2 years in jail for coke possession, but the reason he didn’t get it is because our legal system is a complete joke.
I know there’s another hundred cases like this that get thrown out on technicalities on a daily basis, but that doesn’t make it right.
It’s time to rip up the charter, throw out case law and start from scratch.
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To all those dumping on this article – what part of “The only person who knows is the Crown prosecutor herself and she isn’t talking about it.” do you not understand? This is not a political issue in that Jaffer was not an elected member of parliament when it happened, and there was no interference at all that can be discerned.
If any of you actually took a little time to go over cases that have gone before the courts, you’d discover that this kind of thing happens all of the time, to all classes of people.
But it’s not about reason, or the truth, with this bunch. It’s about using any opportunity, however tenuous to smear innocent people for political purposes.
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Well thought out and balanced commentary. As to chris’s comment”why isn’t Mr Jaffer suing for wrongful prosecution?”; there was no prosecution, so how do you sue for a wrongfull one? Please don’t check your brains at the door!
As for the muteness of the crown as to the reasons for declining to prosecute, perhaps sometimes it is wise to remain mute rather than cause embarassment to our police force, who often despite good intentions and hard, honest work, do make mistakes. To have them ridiculed and publicly flogged would just add more pressure to an already very difficult job.
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Poorly written and edited piece, needs clearer thinking.
“to deduce that the investigation had fatal flaws”, in the absence of any facts, ignores the creeping suspicion that there might have been political interference.
Time for a Facebook page devoted to cancelling MP and MPP pensions for these creeps.
Wonder if Mulroney’s pension is hand delivered cash in a brown paper bag.
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Terry, I’ll believe the Crown prosecutor over the OPP anyday of the week!! Really, what are they going to say? Our officers don’t know how to enforce the law properly, b/c we do a half-a** job of training them? To believe that there was some “deal” here, one has to implicate the Crown prosecutor and the Attorney General of Ontario. It’s ridiculous.
Nearly 40% of charges laid by the Crown in Ontario are withdrawn at some point. Jaffer might have caught a break by being in that 40%, but it has nothing to do with his public profile or whatever influence anyone out there thinks he yields. We have rules of procedure that must be followed. These have been painstakingly outlined and clarified by the courts through the years. It seems a lot of people would like their police forces to operate outside of known rules of procedure, and make up their own rules as they go along. So blind such people are. Yeah, I bet you’d all be ok with that until such point that it’s you on the wrong end of the equation.
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Hey, posession of hard drugs are rareley if ever dropped. Lets be real. I am a HUGE “C” Conservative and I want justice be done. I want this man charged like anyone else. Hey if Harper were picked up with a 8 ball I would want hime to go down too. Unfortunatly of the Hiway traffic charge and the Criminal one, there is more money in the Hiway one… sad, very sad.
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Jo: “posession of hard drugs are rareley if ever dropped”
Gotta love blanket statements thrown out without any supporting documents or research!
Just do a search for “s.8 charter seizure cocaine” on http://www.CanLii.org, and you’ll get a multitude of cases involving excluded evidence and improper search and seizure. Here’s just one such case:
http://tinyurl.com/section8case
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ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS
“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
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The writer of this article is obviously trying to get a cushy press job in Ottawa, to spin and apologize.
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This is why common people hate politicians. They bend rules as to please them. Irrespective of party affiliation they are one big nasty family they care only about their own interest.
Way to go Ontario libels for a former conservative MP
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What Jones and the ‘legal experts’ don’t get is that the vast majority of us don’t care whether Jaffer’s loophole was legit or not. I and many others are appalled at a legal system that could allow a man to evade drunk driving and drug possession charges after he himself campaigned for tougher criminal sentences and demonized the NDP as advocates for marijuana. Thankfully, I’ve never seen the inside of a courtroom, but I don’t need to go to a cow pasture to know BS when I see it.
Please continue discussion on the forum: link