Top court: Opportunity to serve trumps ultimate jury composition – Lawyers Weekly Canada

June 05 2015

Lawyers say the Supreme Court’s narrow view of the state’s constitutional obligation to compile a representative jury roll could, at worst, constrain Ontario government efforts to improve the representation of First Nations on juries.

On May 21, the top court in R. v. Kokopenace [2015] S.C.J. No. 28 divided 5-2 to allow the appeal of the Ontario Crown against a ruling by the province’s Court of Appeal. A majority of the Court of Appeal held in 2013 that the government’s failure to compile a jury roll that adequately represented Aboriginal on-reserve residents in the northern Ontario district of Kenora undermined public confidence in the integrity of the justice system, and thus violated the Charter ss. 11(d) and 11(f) fair trial and jury trial rights of an Aboriginal man from the Grassy Narrows First Nation reserve who was convicted by a jury of manslaughter in 2008. The evidence indicated that Aboriginals living on reserves at that time made up as much as 32 per cent of the adult population in Kenora, but only four per cent of Kenora’s jury roll.

The Supreme Court’s judgment marks the first time it has decided on the important questions of Charter-protected rights to a representative jury, and the state’s constitutional obligations in that regard.

Read More: http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/articles/2396