The Edmonton lawyer who led a successful constitutional challenge against mandatory additions to the sex offender registry said justice was served..Elvis Iginla, who represented the appellant Richard Ndhlovu, told Western Standard the Supreme Court made the right call..“Sexual offences range from one end to the other. And the people who commit them range from prolific sexual offenders to people who do not have criminal record, teenagers, and so on and so forth. Prior to 2011, there was a discretion allowed for the Crown prosecutors, and for the judge, to look into circumstances of the person, their background, if necessary, hear from experts as to how likely they were to commit another offense,” Iginla said..“The previous law that allowed a judge to entertain applications from people convicted of sexual offences was the better way to go. Experts the courts read from were unanimous that not everyone who commits a sexual offense necessarily poses a danger in the future. In fact, the expert opinions were that most people, the overwhelming majority of people, who commit sexual offences do not go on to reoffend.”.The SCC ruling said 27 offenses affected by the legislation varied widely in severity, and that “there is little or no concrete evidence of the extent to which it assists police in the prevention and investigation of sex offences.” .Iginla, the father of Calgary Flames legend Jarome Iginla, said expert testimony showed most sexual offenses are not committed by strangers, but by people the victim knows. He points out the government lawyers never showed how a less inclusive registry had made a real-life difference..“Prior to 2011, judges had discretion. So some people were left off the registry as a result of discretion. There was not a single evidence offered to assure that any of those people who were left out went on to commit a crime. Not one. And even if they did, remember, the registry is not punishment,” Iginla explained..“That doesn't mean the registry is not useful. It can be very useful, it can be very valuable. But the perception that somehow if everyone is put on the registry it would help the police better, that is not borne out.”.Iginla said the purpose of the registry is to prevent and solve crime, not to punish. Therefore, “you dilute the registry” and waste police time if they have to file through the sex offender listings of people who should not be there..“It's a very burdensome registration. This is the worst, the most serious type of probation to put a person on. You can't travel, you can't do anything, they have a right to come in and check up on you at anytime. [You] report to the police where you are, where you work, who you associate with, where you're travelling to, your passport number,” Iginla said..“The experts are telling us when you're dealing with very low risk offenders, people are not likely to reoffend, people are trying to put their life back together, and you place them under those type of restrictions, there is a tendency to affect them emotionally and psychologically to the point where you make them more likely now to commit a crime, simply because they have that much more difficulty getting their lives back. That's not a big factor.”.In the Supreme Court’s “Case in Brief” posted online, the judges said they were not given specific examples of where the Sexual Offender Information Registry Act (SOIRA) made a difference in solving or preventing a crime..“The Crown, moreover, identified no cases where SOIRA helped police solve or prevent a sex offence, either before or after the challenged measures were introduced. In fact, at the s. 1 hearing, the Crown called the registry’s national database manager with the RCMP and, on cross-examination, he testified that he was unaware of any offences that were solved using SOIRA,” the decision read..“It is, moreover, unclear how SOIRA could even prevent a sex offence. Det. Hove provided only a hypothetical example where the police used the database to intercept an offender after witnessing some suspicious behaviour. In theory, of course, the registry might prevent offences if a serial offender is apprehended using it, preventing future assaults by that person, but no evidence was adduced to support this hypothesis..“More significantly, the Crown has adduced no evidence that demonstrates the salutary effects of the challenged measures. Under s. 1, the onus is on the Crown to justify the specific infringing measures, not the overall scheme. The Crown did not adduce any evidence on the difficulties that police faced in investigating sexual offences with SOIRA before the 2011 amendments and how the amendments mitigated these difficulties. No evidence was adduced to demonstrate the benefit of registering every sex offender, without regard for their risk of reoffending. To the contrary, we note that Dr. Hanson, the Crown’s own expert, testified that “[b]lanket policies that treat all sex offenders as ‘high risk’ waste resources by over-supervising lower risk offenders and risk diverting resources from the truly high-risk offenders who could benefit from increased supervision and human service”… No more evidence was presented on the benefits that flow from police having longer access to the information of offenders who have committed multiple offences without an intervening conviction.”.Iginla said the idea that judges are too lenient is “the wrong perception” and that allowing them discretion again is a better balance of protecting the public and protecting personal rights and freedoms..“What the court is saying is make the law such that every person that's on there, whose rights has been curtailed, there's a justification for it,” Iginla said..“Experts are saying, Well, look, judges how the power to put people in jail for the remainder of their lives. They have all the power because we trust them, and you don't have to make these decisions. Give them the opportunity that they had in the past to look to the circumstances and determine whether or not placing a particular person [on the registry] would help the public.”.Statistics Canada reported 34,200 sexual assaults were reported to police in 2021, an 18% increase from the previous year. However, the agency reported that only 6% of the actual assaults were reported. A study released in 2017 by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics showed only 12% of formal reports resulted in a conviction..Kerrie Isaac, executive director for the non-profit Sexual Assault Services of Saskatchewan, told the Western Standard in a statement the low reporting and conviction rates raise questions..“SASS is unsure how effective sex offender registries are at preventing sexual assault and keeping communities safe,” she said..Isaac also said as the government takes a fresh look at the issue of sexual assault that they will provide more programs and education to help prevent further offenses.
