Court strikes down prostitutions laws

[Arkane Steelblade]

A Toronto judge has struck down Canada’s prostitution laws, effectively decriminalizing activities associated with the world’s oldest trade.


“These laws, individually and together, force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” Justice Susan Himel of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice said in Tuesday’s landmark decision.
The long-awaited judgement had been on reserve for nearly a year.
“This is wonderful,” dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford told reporters at the University Ave. courthouse.
Three sex trade workers had asked the court to strike down Criminal Code provisions dealing with prostitution, contending the laws violate their constitutional right to security of the person and freedom of expression.
Bedford and prostitutes Valerie Scott and Amy Lebovitch challenged the law under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
They argued that restrictions on keeping a common bawdy house, communicating for the purposes of prostitution and living on the avails of the trade force sex workers onto the street and expose them to violence.
In an affidavit filed with the court, Bedford described scars she has from being hit on the head with a baseball bat by a customer many years ago when she worked as a street prostitute.
The women argued that if the law permitted sex workers to conduct their business indoors, they could employ safety measures such as the use of security guards and monitoring devices.
But when the case was argued in Toronto last fall, lawyers for Ontario’s attorney general suggested there are already measures that women on the streets can employ to ensure safer working conditions, including simply warning each other about customers with a propensity for violence.
Lawyers for the federal government maintained that prostitution is inherently dangerous no matter where it is practised.
The Criminal Code prohibitions, Canada argued, are meant to prevent the commercialization of the sex trade and protect women from exploitation.
Although prostitution itself is not illegal in Canada, almost everything associated with it is, a situation that was once described as “bizarre” by a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada.
The Supreme Court dismissed a slightly narrower challenge to the country’s prostitution laws in 1990.
At that time, the court ruled that restrictions on communicating for the purposes of prostitution was a justifiable limit on free expression because the law was meant to discourage the nuisances of street prostitution and related activities such as drug trafficking.
As part of their case, Bedford, Scott and Lebovich pointed to a report from a Parliamentary committee that was released in 2006, several years after the Supreme Court had considered the constitutionality of the legislation.
The report concluded that restrictions on communicating had merely shifted prostitution from certain neighbourhoods into others.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...tution-laws-unconstitutional-court-rules?bn=1

 

[Austin]

This is excellent.

Please forgive my ignorance of your Canadian legal system...can a Superior Court decision be appealed, or is this settled?

 

[dani_e152003]

It would be expected that the Crown will file a notice of appeal within 30 days to the Ontario Court of Appeal. After that there is the potential for a further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. These will take several years. But for the moment the law has been struck.

There is a theoretical option that the parliament of Canada could change the laws rendering any appeals moot, but given the Conservative government that would be extremely unlikely.

I haven't seen the full text of the decision yet and hopefully Nikki will add more useful comments later today.

 

[ZombieCakes]

crap, i'm retired now ::

good new for everyone else though

 

[flames]

For sure a GOOD news day!arty:arty:

 

[Lee]

Yup! My Tuesday just got better :love:

 

[Jaguar Jones is uncouth]

I believe that for the next 30 days you cannot be convicted for prostitution related offences. Even if you are charged now, and go to court after the 30 days have expired. Reason being there right now is no law that forbids prostitution.

Can a lawyer verify this for me??

 

[RosaFam07]

The Globe and Mail version

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...strikes-down-prostitution-law/article1730433/



Ontario’s prostitution law fell Tuesday after a judge ruled that it endangers the very women it is meant to protect.
In a landmark decision striking down the core of the controversial law, Ontario Superior Court Judge Susan Himel said that the law forces women to operate their business furtively in an atmosphere of constant secrecy and danger.


"By increasing the risk of harm to street prostitutes, the communicating law is simply too high a price to pay for the alleviation of social nuisance," Judge Himel said in her 131-page ruling which took almost a year to produce.


"I find that the danger faced by prostitutes greatly outweighs any harm which may be faced by the public," she later added.



The ruling means that the law can no longer be enforced in Ontario. If the decision were to be upheld on appeal, it would topple the use of the prostitution provisions across the country.


In the short term, however, the Ontario Crown is expected to seek a stay of execution that would permit police to temporarily continue enforcing the law.


Three prostitutes launched the challenge in an attempt to bring Canada into line with other nations that have relaxed their enforcement of prostitution, including New Zealand, Australia and Germany. In particular, the litigants challenged three key provisons relating to communicating for the purpose of prostitution, living off the avails and keeping a common bawdy house (brothel).
The litigants would have viewed winning on one of them as a major triumph. They hardly dared to imagine gutting the law entirely.


“We got everything,” the lawyer behind the challenge, Alan Young, yelped as he read the concluding portions of the decision. “We did it!”


Mr. Young said that the judge refused to suspend the effect of her decision while the government moves to fill the legislative gap.


“It takes effect right now,” he told reporters at Toronto's downtown courthouse.


If upheld on appeal, the decision will plunge Parliament back into the extremely divisive and complicated job of criminalizing an activity that is not itself illegal.


Indeed, successive governments have been branded hypocritical for taking a legal act and erecting criminal impediments to every aspect of carrying it out.


Judge Himel said that any doubt about the dangers to women was dispelled when serial killer Robert Pickton's targeted women in a killing spree at his Vancouver pig farm.


She heard evidence during a weeklong hearing last year that as many as 300 sex-trade workers, most of whom were street prostitutes, have disappeared since 1985.


“It is estimated that street sex work makes up less than 20 per cent of prostitution in Canada, but they appear to account for more than 95 per cent of the homicide victims and missing women,” said a key witness for the litigants, Simon Fraser University criminologist John Lowman.


Judge Himel stressed that several other provisions relating to the sex trade remain in effect. These include prohibitions against child prostition; impeding pedestrian or vehicular traffic; and procuring.


She said that these are sufficient to give police the power to keep prostitutes from bothering passersby or turning neighbourhoods into sleazy dens of iniquity.


Judge Himel also said that pimps who threaten or commit violence against prostitutes can still be prosecuted using other sections of the Criminal Code.


"In conclusion, I respectfully reject the argument made by the (Crown) that a legal vacuum would be created by an immediate declaration of invalidity in this case," she said.


However, Judge Himel gave the Crown a 30-day window in which to make arguments against legalizing bawdy houses on account of a concern that "unlicenced brothels may be operated in a way that may not be in the public interest."


Mr. Young tried to prove that the women's constitutional right to life, liberty and security were jeopardized by repressive laws that exacerbate the perils of a notoriously hazardous profession. The litigants argued that there is no harm to a sexual act between a consenting prostitute and her client.


Sporadic attempts have been made over the years to chip away at aspects of the prostitution law, but the challenge was the first in two decades to aim for a broad sweep of its provisions.
With the Charter challenge almost certain to reach the Supreme Court of Canada, both sides amassed a vast body of evidence, including dozens of witnesses.


Lawyers for the federal and Ontario Crown focused on proving the inherent dangers of prostitution - whether it is conducted in a car, an open field or a luxurious boudoir. They also argued that prostitution is inherently degrading and unhealthy, and should not be encouraged as a 'career choice' for young women through a slack legal regime.


The prosecutors urged Judge Himel not to intrude on the terrain of legislators who have studied and vigorously debated prostitution provisions. They said that, even if prostitution were made legal and moved indoors, it would still entail a high degree of danger its practitioners.


“Any time you are alone with a john, it is dangerous,” federal Crown Michael Morris told Judge Himel. “There is no safe haven when you are involved in prostitution. There is overwhelming evidence that johns can become violent at any moment.”


However, Prof. Lowman countered that prohibiting communication renders prostitutes unable to “screen” potential clients, hire security or move behind the relative safety of closed doors.
He said that he purposely delayed his challenge until after the Pickton trial, cognizant that the Supreme Court insists on strong evidence of actual harm, rather than abstract arguments.
Prof. Lowman also testified that, according to public opinion polls and research, a majority of Canadians believe that prostitution between consenting adults should be legal.


“So do the Bloc, Liberals and NDP, according to the 2006 parliamentary report of the Subcommittee on Solicitation Laws,” he said. “Clearly, Canadians are ready to end what one judge has characterized as the ‘Alice in Wonderland' state of Canadian prostitution law.”
Several cities – including Toronto, Victoria, Windsor, Calgary and Edmonton – charge fees to licence body-rub establishments despite the general understanding that many sell sexual services.
“We have this strange situation where the biggest pimps in the country right now are municipal governments,” Prof. Young told the court. “It's just another irrationality of the law.”
The hearing grew heated when Prof. Lowman said that many of the Crown's experts have a history of lying to foreign legislators, conducting simplistic research, fabricating scare stories and employing absurd rhetoric to help stall the global liberalization of prostitution laws. He accused them of travelling the world trying to convince permissive governments of their errors.

 

[86% Barbie]

Its not that simple.
First, I have not seen Madam Justice Himel's decision, let alone read all 131 pages.

The newspaper reports give the impression that the Crown can make further submissions to her within 30 days. If that's that case then some parts of the laws still stand.

So without reading the whole thing I cannot give an accurate answer. It could very well be that the "found-in" provisions are still live.

Second, the practical realities of life is that you do not want to be the test case. The Toronto Police Service may make a policy decision to not lay charges, or they may make a decision to have a raid so that they have a test case of their own.

If anyone is currently facing a charge then clearly their lawyer needs to read the decision in DETAIL.

Keep in mind that Justice Himel is of Ontario Superior Court and most prostitution charges are brought in the Ontario Court of Justice which is a lower court. That means her decision is binding on the lower criminal courts.

 

[Bec]

This one has to piss off every lawyer in Canada

Until this ruling the lawyers were the only people in Canada who could legally charge hundreds of dollars per hour. Sometimes thousands if you brought in a celebrity lawyer or team. The could charge this to F*&K people. And their clients would be happy to pay.

Heck sometimes they would even do them in front of an audience (court rooms)

 

[Pompal 09.]

Congratulations ladies it is about time.

Now if you could bring some of that Common Sense used by your courts to our courts I would like that.

 

[CallMeKleriker]

It's about time. This is very good news!arty:

 

[FAISALWAD]

Interesting and hopefully a step in the right direction.
No I don't think that it would prevent someone from being charged under prostitution laws as this is one judge's provincial ruling not a change yet to constitution laws surrounding the industry. But makes for good case law now I would think.

I wonder how this mixes with the change in law over the summer - keeping common bawdy house - organized crime?

 

[Davycrop]

Opps just reread didn't realize that technically it could become law.

So nothing changes as the crown has 30 days to appeal and in the meantime will ask for the laws to remain unchanged. Three aspects where changed.

Will be interesting to see what happens over the next month both with the case and in the industry.

 

[Jennifer M]

Congratulations Ladies and Gents!

Excellent news for SP's, MP's and Hobbyists alike.

 

[Pompal 09.]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/pointofview/...ion-laws-did-a-judge-make-the-right-call.html

 

[Tarra]

Congratulations! A long overdue decision and one that I hope stands up on appeal.

Forgive my cynicism about this litigation up until this moment. I had thought it very unlikely that a court would strike down the prostitution law after the chaos that ensued after the last decision of this kind in the early 1990's. I am overjoyed to see that I was far too pessimistic and intend to hop onto your bandwagon with all my might!

This is a game-changer for the entire adult entertainment scene.

 

[YNEW rides her veggies!]

Freedom won again!arty:

 

[Paisley]

IMO I believe that the judge made the right decision in striking down key parts of Canada's prostitution laws.

 

[softtop_2007]

You and me both. I never expected that kind of ruling.

Time to retire my cynicism I guess.