Supreme Court of Canada overturns second trial for Quebec man

A Quebec man convicted of the manslaughter of his wife has been spared a second trial following a decision handed down Friday by the Supreme Court of Canada.

The country’s highest court overturned the judgment of the Quebec Court of Appeal ordering a new trial in the Pascal Varennes case. However, it gave the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP) the opportunity to appeal the case again.

In 2020, the man was acquitted of the offence of second-degree murder, but found guilty of the manslaughter of his wife in December 2015 in the Laurentians. He was sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment.

The verdict was challenged by the prosecution, who argued that the judge’s decision to hold the trial without a jury was an error. The Quebec Court of Appeal sided with the prosecution in 2023 and ordered Varennes to undergo a new jury trial on the charge of second-degree murder.

In a unanimous decision handed down on Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the trial judge. The trial judge had accepted Varennes’ request for a bench trial. The accused had argued, among other things, that the risk of delays with a jury trial due to the COVID-19 pandemic could infringe on his right to be tried within a reasonable time under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In granting Varennes’ motion, “the trial judge prevented a likely violation of paragraph 11(b) and avoided a stay of proceedings, thereby protecting the appellant’s rights while respecting the prosecutor’s decision to have the charge tried on its merits,” wrote Supreme Court Justice Andromache Karakatsanis.

The prosecution had objected to a trial by judge alone, arguing that “the public interest militated in favor of holding a jury trial in the case of a murder charge in a context of domestic violence in a small community”, recalls the Supreme Court. It also considered that “it was not obvious that the health constraints associated with the pandemic would delay the trial”.

An ‘appropriate remedy‘

In this case, the Supreme Court had to determine, among other things, whether the trial judge had jurisdiction to order a bench trial in a murder case despite the CPPD’s refusal to consent.

Contrary to what the Court of Appeal had concluded, the highest court in the land ruled that she could. The choice of whether or not to consent to a trial by judge alone does not fall within the “essential” prosecutorial discretion of the Crown.

Under the Criminal Code, any trial for an offence under section 469, including murder, must take place before a judge and jury, unless the accused and the Attorney General consent to a trial by judge alone.

The Supreme Court ruled that the judge had jurisdiction to override the DPCP’s choice, since she concluded that a jury process “would likely infringe Varennes’ right to be tried within a reasonable time” under the Charter and following Jordan.

“The decision to order a bench trial was an appropriate remedy (under the Charter) (…) designed to prevent an infringement while causing the least possible prejudice to other public interests,” Justice Karakatsanis wrote in reasons shared by five of the court’s seven judges.

Abuse of process

Justices Malcolm Rowe and Nicholas Kasirer agreed with the conclusion that the trial judge had not erred in taking a course contrary to the DPCP. However, they do not share the same reasoning for doing so.

In their view, it was an “abuse of process” for the prosecution to insist on a jury trial in the summer of 2020, when the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic were breaking and “the courthouses had only just reopened”.

“Given the exceptional circumstances of this case, the trial judge was justified in overruling the prosecutor’s decision, because it involved conduct that undermined the integrity of the justice system,” wrote Judge Rowe.

The court also noted that the Quebec Court of Appeal had not considered all the grounds of appeal put forward by the prosecution. As requested by the Crown, the Supreme Court suggests sending the case back to the Court of Appeal to rule on the other grounds of appeal.

However, it is up to the DPCP to decide whether or not to re-appeal the acquittal on the other grounds raised, the Supreme Court points out.

Judge Rowe points out that Varennes has already served a sentence equivalent to nine years and three months, and has reintegrated into his community and family.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews