In 2009 a police sting operation in Peel Region was determined to be tainted. As a result much of the evidence was thrown out, and a charged drug dealer got off with house arrest instead of five to eight years in prison.

In this article, the judge is quoted as saying, “The police showed contempt, not just for the basic rights of every accused, but for the sanctity of a courtroom.”

However, the police reviewing the case decided “After a comprehensive review of all of the available evidence and in consultation with the ministry, no criminal charges will be laid against any of the involved officers”

More recently, in this article, we are told “Ontario’s Crown attorneys will soon be required to report cases where they believe police officers have lied under oath.”

Don’t hold your breath waiting for things to change. What really will happen is this:

“Under the new system, if a judge makes findings or comments that an officer was deliberately untruthful, or the Crown attorney has reasonable evidence that the officer was lying, the trial prosecutor must report it to his local manager.

From there, the supervising Crown will review the case file and court transcripts to see if there are grounds to believe the officer deliberately lied.

If there are grounds, the case gets forwarded to a regional director, who makes the decision whether to send the case to police for investigation.”

In short, there are three places where the decision to proceed can be dropped. And then, ‘to proceed’ means, pass the case to the police, who will then investigate themselves.

So now for the dumb question: is anyone aware of any system that polices itself, that actually polices itself rigorously?