The loss of innocence and the pursuit of compensation for the wrongly convicted (original) (raw)

Unlike the United Kingdom and a majority of the United States, there is no legislated right to compensation for wrongful convictions in Canada. For those who have suffered tremendous personal and financial damage as a result of a wrongful incarceration, the available remedies include the expensive and time-consuming routes of litigation for malicious prosecution, negligent investigation and a Charter breach, or the highly-politicized exercise of mercy by a government to make an ex gratia payment. While the State’s failure to prove guilt in the criminal justice process as a fundamental operation of the presumption of innocence should provide relief to an accused in the pursuit of financial redress from a wrongful conviction, the requirement that evidence of factual innocence be adduced is a burden few can meet. While the Supreme Court of Canada has taken a broader approach than other common law jurisdictions in allowing law suits to proceed seeking compensation against police, the Cr...