Legislature gives court sheriffs legal authority
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/09/2017 (2969 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
COURT sheriffs in Manitoba will now have legal justification to do many of the things they’re already doing as part of their jobs.
New legislation that comes into effect today formalizes the authority sheriff’s officers have to pat down people entering court offices, evict people who are being disruptive in court or refuse entry to intoxicated people, for example.
The changes to the Court Security Act put Manitoba in line with several other provinces when it comes to legislating the powers sheriff’s officers have, said Shauna Curtin, assistant deputy minister responsible for courts.
The province has now put into law that sheriffs can deny entry to people if they have “reasonable and probable grounds” to believe they’ll cause a disturbance.
“Denying entry is not something that we had an authority to do. We may have done it from time to time, but now it’s something that we’re able to do on a proactive basis,” Curtin said.
Curtin pointed to an example of a case from a couple years ago, when an “irate” individual who showed up to court for a child custody case was physically violent and was refused entry. He later complained to the judiciary that he had been denied access to justice even though the province had no legal grounds to do so.
“There are examples of that sort of thing that happen all the time, you know, people being argumentative or not being sober or carrying something that they don’t consider to be a weapon but we do,” she said.
The legislation also expands the definition of prohibited weapons to include not only bombs and explosive devices but any component or ingredient of an explosive device.
More signage at court entrances will be part of the changes.
“It’s open, it’s transparent, anybody can now know what the boundaries are. And the sheriff now has capacity and legal authority to carry out their work in a way that everybody understands,” she said.