Criminal Law

R. v. Thompson

The Thomson case addresses an important procedural question regarding the ability of the superior court to overrule a preliminary inquiry judge's decision to discharge a criminal defendant at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing. For many years, superior courts had assumed that they could quash discharges on the basis of jurisdiction error and substitute committals for trial. In Thomson, the Ontario Court of Appeal held that this assumption is incorrect, and that a superior court that sets aside a discharge must remit the case back to the preliminary inquiry judge for further proceedings.

Thompson was represented by Jonathan Dawe

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