R. v. L.D.L.

(Calgary, P.C. - Breach of Bail). Judicial Interim Release or bail is one of the most important components of Canada's criminal justice system. This is so because "bail" is an essential ingredient of the presumption of innocence. The default is that all person's charged with an offence in Canada are legally entitled to apply for bail and must be granted reasonable bail if the primary, secondary and tertiary grounds for judicial interim release are met. 

To summarize, the primary ground for bail concerns risk of flight (or risk of failing to attend court). The secondary ground confronts the question of whether the accused is a "substantial likelihood to re-offend" in a manner that will endanger the public if released. The tertiary ground for bail concerns public confidence in the administration of justice and therefore is usually only activated in serious cases (ie., homicide, sexual assault, firearms offences, multi-kilo level drug trafficking). Even in the most serious cases, if the court is satisfied that the all three grounds for release can be addressed by imposing bail conditions, release from custody is to be preferred. This is so because all person's charged with a criminal offence in Canada are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  

LDL was charged with breaching bail conditions.  A condition of release included "no contact" with the alleged victim. Breaching bail is a criminal offence and as such proving the breach still requires the Crown to present evidence capable of proving the allegation "beyond a reasonable doubt".  In LDL's case, the Prosecution did not have strong evidence that LDL failed to comply with bail and as such, withdrew the charge.

Bail is important because it not only honours the presumption of innocence but having bail places the accused in the best position to properly defend the case. This is so because if a person is in custody, he or she may make decisions to end a prosecution that they might not ordinarily make if they were not already behind bars.  Since it is so important to have bail to defend a criminal case, it is important to retain a lawyer who has a solid reputation for getting their client judicial interim release.  David Chow is an experienced criminal defence lawyer based in Calgary who understands the importance of judicial interim release and how to get bail of this clients.