Hundreds of Ontario cases tossed, compromised after police officers violated Charter rights

[Michael Jack]

Charges were tossed or evidence was excluded from Ontario court proceedings hundreds of times over the past decade due to police officers in urban areas violating the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a new report examining more than 600 cases has found.

Report co-author Sunil Gurmukh, an adjunct law professor at Western University, said in an interview after the report’s release Wednesday that people accused of criminal offences are frequently “walking free” because of violations by officers in Toronto, Ottawa and Peel, York and Durham regions.

“Police have a tough job, but they can still get the bad guys without breaching the Charter,” he said.

“This is especially the case when officers deliberately violated the Charter or were negligent or where courts have flagged systemic issues.”

The research looked at 627 Ontario court rulings between Jan. 1, 2015 and May 31, 2025, in which police officers were found to have violated Charter rights more than 1,000 times.

The report said in 70 per cent of cases, evidence was excluded, proceedings were stayed or a sentence was reduced — something that researchers argue undermines public trust and harms victims.

Gurmukh noted the research did not look at cases in which a suspect was not charged or the Crown decided to withdraw charges.

He said police forces, oversight agencies and provincial and federal governments must do more in response to rights violations by officers.

“To enhance public trust, legitimacy and safety, there must be monitoring, accountability, transparency and independent oversight.”

For starters, prosecutors should report Charter violations to police chiefs so services can conduct investigations, said Gurmukh.

Police services and boards should track violations, report on them annually and “publicly review policies, procedures and training related to the systemic issues in our report,” Gurmukh added.

He suggested that the provincial inspector general of policing should also conduct a broader review, noting that officers’ conduct can have significant consequences in individual cases.

“Guns, drugs, reliable evidence of child pornography and breathalyzer test results are being excluded from evidence in trials.”

Gurmukh said the most common Charter rights violations consisted of officers conducting unlawful searches and seizures or delaying suspects’ access to legal counsel.

“These violations are preventable. We don’t live in a police state. The Charter protects all of us,” he said.

“It’s why the police can’t search our homes without reasonable grounds.”

A qualitative analysis of cases involving the Toronto Police Service and Peel Regional Police found systemic issues including racial profiling, not telling accused people about their right to a lawyer without delay upon arrest and not respecting their right to choose their own lawyer, Gurmukh said.

“Courts have criticized the Toronto Police Service for failing to bring in-custody accused … to bail court within 24 hours of arrest,” he added.

“That systemic problem has persisted for more than 20 years. Courts have called it, quote, ‘a culture of complacency.'”

The analysis found 11 cases where police officers in Toronto and Peel Region lied or gave false testimony, Gurmukh said, including six cases that involved multiple officers doing so.

Gurmukh said the courts excluded evidence or granted a stay in 10 of those cases.

He said researchers also found 15 cases in which Toronto and Peel officers conducted unlawful investigations into alleged child sexual exploitation, and courts excluded reliable evidence from trial because an officer violated the Charter in 11 of those cases.

In a 2022 example, Gurmukh said evidence of child sexual exploitation material was thrown out in an Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision after Peel police deliberately exceeded the limits of a search warrant by staging a fake delivery and searching areas of a home that they had no authority to search.

“Police overreach and disregard for the Charter have undermined the integrity of prosecutions,” he said, adding that this has put “the safety of children at risk.”

Toronto and Peel police did not immediately provide comment.

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[Michael Jack]

Researchers from Western University and the University of Toronto found more than 1000 violations since 2015

Violations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by police remain an ongoing problem, according to a new report. The review, conducted by researchers at Western University and the University of Toronto, warned that these violations are leading to evidence getting tossed out, court proceedings being stayed, and in some cases, criminals getting off the hook.

The lead researchers on the report, titled “Unlawful Enforcers: Charter Violations by Major Ontario City Police Services,” were Sunil Gurmukh, an adjunct professor at Western Law, and Scot Wortley, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies.

It followed a 2022 investigative report by the Toronto Star, which uncovered 600 cases of serious Charter violations by law enforcement between 2011 and 2021.

The new findings released on Wednesday showed more than 1000 violations in 627 cases by officers in Toronto, Peel, York, Durham and Ottawa between 2015 and 2025.

“Urgent action was needed back then and it's even more badly needed now, we can't afford to wait,” Gurmukh said.

“If these (systemic issues) aren't fixed, more guns, drugs and breathalyzer test results will be tossed from trials, and accused who engage in criminal activity will walk free.”

The most common Charter violations outlined in the report were related to Sections 8 and 10(b), the right to be free from unreasonable search, and the right, on arrest, for a lawyer.

Researchers also found instances of racial profiling and officers lying or giving false testimony.

When courts determine that a defendant's rights were violated, oftentimes Chiefs of Police are not made aware of it, Gurmukh said.

The report put forward a number of recommendations to improve monitoring, accountability, transparency and independent oversight, including:

- Developing processes to advise Ontario Chiefs of Police of court decisions with findings of Charter violations.
- Police services conducting investigations into officer misconduct outlined in the report.
- Annual public reporting by police services about Charter violations.
- Implementing an early warning system to alert police leadership of potentially problematic officers.

It also calls on law enforcement to review policies, procedures and training — something Gurmukh said may be a contributing factor to the repeated violations, particularly in search procedures.

The Police Association of Ontario (PAO) has received a copy of the report, according to organization president Mark Bater.

“We are carefully reviewing these recommendations to assess their potential impact on our members and the justice system as a whole,” he said in a statement.

“The PAO remains dedicated to fostering constructive dialogue and advancing initiatives that strengthen public trust while maintaining the highest standards of policing across the province."

Report is 'just the tip of the iceberg'

The list of 1000-plus documented Charter violations is something that should give everyone pause, said Shakir Rahim, lawyer and Director of the Criminal Justice program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association — which has endorsed the report.

“I think members of the public may not be aware just how pervasive this kind of problematic conduct is,” he said.

And both Rahim and Gurmukh pointed out that this is “just the tip of the iceberg.”

For all the Charter violations ruled on in court, there are many that never reach that stage, Rahim said. If charges are not laid, or if they are withdrawn by the Crown for other reasons, it may never be determined whether or not a person’s rights were violated.

“When we allow this kind of conduct to go unchecked, it erodes the fundamental protections that the Charter provides for us,” he warned.

Beyond simply the individual whose rights are violated, the failure of law enforcement to respect the Charter carries broader implications for the administration of justice.

Of those 627 cases in which courts determined the Charter was violated, 70 per cent led to evidence being excluded, a stay of proceedings, or a sentence reduction, Gurmukh said, including 11 cases of child sexual exploitation in which reliable evidence was tossed or charges were stayed.

“If that doesn't speak to the urgency of addressing this problem, I don't know what does,” he said.

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