Gerald Chan and Lindsay Board appeared at the Supreme Court of Canada today on behalf of the interveners the Federation of Asian Canadian Lawyers (FACL) and the Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (CSALC) in the case R. v. Le, on appeal from the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The case involves the alleged unlawful search and detention of a young East-Asian man after police trespassed into his friend’s backyard in a co-operative housing complex in Toronto. The main issues before the Supreme Court were whether a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy as an invited guest at a friend’s home, and whether the officers’ questioning of the backyard’s occupants amounted to an unlawful detention of the accused.
Gerald made oral submissions on how and why race should play a role in determining whether a racialized accused has been psychologically detained by police, with particular emphasis on systemic prejudice Asian-Canadians have faced in their interactions with police in Canada. The archived webcast of the hearing can be found here. FACL and CSALC’s factum can be found here. You can read more about the background of the case in the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star.
