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Bail Release Plan – Judicial Interim Release
Hi everyone. I’m Janan JIRA part of the team here at eLaw Alliance. I’ve also got Peter P. Herman Jan. Uh, we’re all lawyers here.
Today’s topic that we wanted to talk to you about is a little bit more detail about bail and specifically a bail release plan. Uh, please keep in mind. We’re not giving legal advice in this video. We’d be more than happy to provide that advice, but you’re gonna have to contact us directly for it. But today we wanted to talk about, uh, bail.
We’ve had another video about bail and just a little bit of an overview bails, uh, in, uh, Canada is also referred to as judicial interim lease. It’s an opportunity for somebody who has been arrested or charged and, uh, is in detention to basically fight for the release. And there are a lot of principles associated with bail, and we did talk about those in a previous video, but let’s talk about some examples of actual bail plans. Uh, have you guys, what are some of the bail release plans, uh, and principles that come out of those bail release plans?
Yeah. And Jeanette recently, uh, on, in December, uh, 18th 2019, uh, the criminal code actually, uh, uh, had an amendment regarding, um, this area of law. Um, funny enough, the criminal code calls, bail, judicial intern release. The word bail actually is not in the code, uh, at all. Um, whether it’s from the Americans or whether it’s from TV. Um, what we, when we talk about bail generally, uh, think the first thing that you hear about is, um, a release order now. So what they recall and, um, a lot of people now are talking about what they call a ladder principle,
A ladder principle. What does that Mean? So think of it, a ladder, um, what the Supreme court has said, and now is in the criminal code, is that a ladder principle is the form of releases that a steps up, um, us, you, you are, uh, coming back before the court for another bail, if you are, uh, already on a release order, um, what the court has said and what the criminal code is now saying is that, uh, at the beginning, if you’ve never had a criminal record, if you’ve never been arrested for any offenses, is that, uh, you are release should be the least onerous form.
So that the release order is not setting you up for, uh, failure, so to speak. So, uh, at the beginning, uh, we mentioned this in the last video is, uh, once you’re arrested, the police has the discretion to release you, uh, on what they use the call promise to appear, uh, or an undertaking basically is your promise to follow these conditions and show up on your court date, um, so that you will deal with the matter similar to when you’re getting a traffic ticket, there will be a court date on there, uh, for you to appear in court.
Police will probably not be very discreet
If the police do not, uh, use their discretion or cannot use their discretion to release you, uh, you’ll be held for a, uh, judicial, uh, interim release, hearing bail hearing in front of a justice of the peace, uh, and justice of the peace represents the provincial court of Alberta, where they will her, whether you should be released, um, pending your, uh, criminal charges.
The latter principle is a principle that they look at, whether there needs to be a step up from your previous release, or where did the, relationship start with, at the very beginning, initial release should be, a release with a court date with no conditions. So basically is that your promise, you’ll be, coming to court on the specific court date that’s been assigned to you, a step up from that as we kind of refer to as latter principle, a step up on the ladder is then a release with condition that you have conditions to follow on your release order and that you will show up on a court date.
One step up from that will be a release order, uh, with a promise to pay with or without conditions again, um, and promise to pay is now it has, uh, a financial application. If you’re not following conditions, if you’re not showing up to court, or if you, uh, find yourself in trouble again and arrested on new charges, uh, the crown can make an application to come after you for that financial obligation.
And then as we step up on the latter principle, um, there will be a cash involved and asurity, um, surety is someone, um, or something that you will depo, um, promise to the court that, uh, you’re going to be following conditions with the maturity as a person. Uh, that person basically, uh, in summary is the supervisor of you. Uh, while you were in the community, you have to make sure that you’re following on conditions.
And if you do suspect that you’re breaching them, they have the obligation to let the court know, let the police know, uh, or else there will be consequences for them. Um, there are other things that you can, uh, put as a sure, uh, things of asset house is, um, um, uh, cars, anything that you owned or value, uh, the court can consider.
This is really just to kind of motivate you in terms of keeping you, uh, following those conditions and making sure you go to court, uh, at the highest wrong of the ladder. So to speak, it would be cap deposits with conditions where you’re literally paying money, um, before you can be released and this amount can vary from, uh, minuscule to something big. Um, so that’s generally what the latter principle is. It is a step up each time, or, um, depending on the circumstances where you should start on that ladder principle.
Bail Release Plan Conditions
So, Peter, one of the things you just mentioned, uh, in that great explanation was conditions. So what are some of the conditions somebody might see for, let’s say, for example, in a situation where they’re charged with domestic assault, what is some of the conditions a person might see for the release,
For a domestic assault, um, the, uh, very common ones that we’re seeing now, and these are some of the examples as all of the release, uh, order conditions are tailored to the circumstances and, and their goal is for one to, will ensure that you’re coming to court to ensure that, uh, there’s a low risk of your way of offending, as well as protecting the, uh, complainant victim or alleged victim, uh, as well as the public, um, in a domestic violence situation, uh, the common ones really come up with the no weapons and no firearm arms.
Basically what they’re trying to do is lower the risk that you’re gonna have anything that could harm the alleged victim. Um, a lot of times they will place, uh, no contact orders, as well as, uh, no goal or, or conditions. Basically. You’re not allowed to go to a certain, uh, resident as our employment of the alleged victim, as well as not to have any contact with them directly or indirectly, uh, except their exceptions, uh, usually for court appearances or for your legal counsel.
What they’re trying to do with this is to try and cool, everybody down prevent further communication or contact between the parties, um, so that, um, the charges can be dealt with, uh, properly. And there is no, uh, further, um, fear of the alleged victim that the alleged offender is going to, uh, further harm them. Um, some of these are just examples, what of the conditions that we can will see, um, however really they’re all specific, uh, to the circumstances and to the alleged offender.
So you, you talked about Peter for, a domestic violence related bail release plan. Uh, no contact conditions are common, no goes no weapons. What if somebody were charged with, um, a, a drug offense or trafficking in drugs, would the bail release plan look similar?
Again, all of the bail release plans are release orders are going to be, uh, circumstantial depending on the circumstances of what the alleged facts are. Uh, what we see in commonly for drug offenses is, um, an abstinent, uh, cause basically, uh, you are asked to abstain from all non-prescribed drugs. However, we have to be careful with that term because, uh, a lot of drug offenses are, um, people who are fortunately are struggling with addiction issues.
And if we’re imposing that, um, and they’re working through their addictions, uh, it’s very likely that that person is going to breach.
SCC is Aware
The Supreme Court of Canada, as well as the criminal code now is, is alerted to that fact that we shouldn’t be setting up these conditions to set people up for failure. That’s not the point of release orders. Um, so really when you’re, um, going through the bail hearing, you need to let the justice of the peace know or your Lord know whether you have, uh, addiction issues so that they can address that properly because there are conditions that we can, um, look at and that allows you to, um, still be released, um, and on these drug offenses and not be, um, have a high probability of breaching them.
Uh, and that can still address the concerns that the court will have in, in terms of the drug offenses. Um, one common one we see for drug trafficking offenses, uh, as a release order would be, uh, a cell phone condition, um, because what they believe is if you have multiple cell phones, there’s a, that’s an indication that you’re, uh, trafficking illegal substances or illicit. Um, and so they try and limit you to one electronic device, uh, so that you’re not, um, again, lowering the risk that you’ll reoffend again.
Just from these two kind of charges along, you can see there is a varying degree of conditions that the court had as, um, to place upon you, once you on your release order, uh, to kind of really address what the real issue is. And we have to keep in mind that these orders and these conditions has to be, has to start the lease orders, and we can’t just be throwing, uh, uh, a blanket condition on for everyone.
So the conditions have to make sense depending on the circumstances of each case. Yes, absolutely. And I, I think that’s the important part is everybody’s condition would likely be different. There may be some that overlap. Um, there may be some that specifically adjust the issue of you not coming to court.
If this is your fourth, uh, allegation that you have failed to appear in court, they might add impose a condition where you are gonna be reporting to a bail supervisor or probation officer on a regular basis so that they ensure, um, that you’re, you’re at least keeping some sort of appointments, uh, as well as a bail supervisor will have resources that will help you. Um, I identify what the barriers for you to come to court, or what are the barriers for you to access certain services, um, that may be of, uh, benefit to you as well?
Contact Us Today!
That’s, uh, some great information. I think, uh, my only tip would be, if you are looking to come up with a bail release plan, if you’re fighting for your own release, uh, consider hiring any one of the three of us, because we definitely have experience in being able to come up with a pretty solid bail release plan. So I think that’s it for this video. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thank you.