Defence lawyers join legal challenge against city police

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This article was published 21/09/2018 (2933 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba criminal defence lawyers are headed to the province’s highest court to fight a Winnipeg Police Service policy that allows record checks to go beyond criminal convictions by including unproven allegations.

The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba received approval this week to join a legal challenge launched by a Winnipeg man, who argued he lost a chance at getting a job as a school bus driver because his vulnerable-sector check revealed he’d been accused of sexual offences against a child eight years earlier. The charges against him were stayed after he signed a peace bond, and he was never convicted of any crime.

The association, which represents 120 defence lawyers, is siding with Michael Kalo during the city’s appeal of a lower court ruling that was also in Kalo’s favour. It has been granted intervener status at an upcoming hearing to challenge unfairness in police policies that allow non-conviction records to be released. The association argues those internal policies have far-reaching effects beyond Kalo’s case and the City of Winnipeg.

“The ramifications of the release of non-conviction information has serious impacts on the ability of persons to seek out employment, and the ability to raise their children, as a start. The procedure utilized in these cases must meet minimum standards of fairness, where the release of this information can have such a serious impact on a person’s life and livelihood,” the association argues in its motion, which was filed in the Court of Appeal.

About three months before Kalo applied for the vulnerable-sector check in 2017, the police service updated its policies on exceptional disclosure assessment, allowing an officer to review a person’s non-conviction information and include it on the record check if there are concerns the person may be a sexual predator or has a history of fraud against the elderly or vulnerable.

In a decision highly critical of the police service’s decision to release the non-conviction information, a Court of Queen’s Bench judge ruled in Kalo’s favour in May. Justice Sheldon Lanchbery ordered the police service to give Kalo a hearing so he could dispute the records disclosure. The judge also ruled an internal police service policy is “flawed” and he asked the province to bring in legislation that would standardize rules for how non-conviction records are disclosed in exceptional cases.

The city appealed Lanchbery’s ruling and asked for a stay on his order while it pursues the case at the Court of Appeal. Kalo agreed to the stay this week, meaning the Winnipeg Police Service won’t review his case until the legal challenge is settled. When he appeared in front of a Court of Appeal judge this week, Kalo said he wants Manitoba’s top court to hear the case “for the benefit of all others out there who might be affected.”

“I think that this case is about great injustice, and not just to me, but to all residents of Manitoba who apply to receive a criminal records check certificate,” he said in court.

katie.may@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @thatkatiemay