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Criminal - Crown Attorneys. R. v. Cowan
In R. v. Cowan (Ont CA, 2022) the Court of Appeal considered the role of criminal Crown counsel:[19] Crown counsel, as the agent through whom the state pursues criminal justice, occupies a distinct role in the criminal justice system. In light of this office, the Crown must exclude any notion of winning or losing from its prosecutions: Boucher v. The Queen, 1954 CanLII 3 (SCC), [1955] S.C.R. 16, at p. 24. The Crown has “a constitutional obligation to act independently of partisan concerns and other improper motives”: R. v. Cawthorne, 2016 SCC 32, at para. 24.
[20] This single-minded duty to the interests of justice manifests itself in “a general duty to disclose all relevant information” to the defence: R. v. Stinchcombe, 1991 CanLII 45 (SCC), [1991] 3 S.C.R. 326, at pp. 340-41 (emphasis in original). As this duty results from the accused’s right to make a full answer and defence to the charges against them, it “includes not only information related to those matters the Crown intends to adduce in evidence against the accused, but also any information in respect of which there is a reasonable possibility that it may assist the accused in the exercise of the right to make a full answer and defence”: R. v. McNeil, 2009 SCC 3, at para. 17.
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