Leave granted in Stillman case

The Supreme Court of Canada today granted leave to appeal in Stillman v. H.M. The Queen, No. 37701. The court dismissed the Editor's motion for leave to intervene in support of the application for leave to appeal without prejudice to his right to apply for leave to intervene in the appeal.

The Office of the Registrar has provided the following summary of the case:

In R. v. Moriarity, [2015] 3 SCR 485, a constitutional challenge based on s. 7 of the Charter to s. 130(1)(a) of the National Defence Act was dismissed. The Supreme Court left open the question whether s. 130(1)(a) violates s. 11(f) of the Charter (which protects the right to a jury trial for anyone charged with an offence where the punishment would be five years or more imprisonment “except in the case of an offence under military law tried before a military tribunal.”)

Following the decision in Moriarity, a constitutional challenge against s. 130(1)(a) was brought by in the Court Martial Appeal Court specifically on the basis that it violated s. 11(f) of the Charter. The Court Martial Appeal Court rejected the challenge: R. v. Royes, 2016 CMAC 1. Leave to appeal was denied.

The cases that have given rise to the current application for leave were all in the system at the time that Moriarity and Royes were being decided. The Court Martial Appeal Court concluded it was bound by its decision in Royes and dismissed the Applicants’ constitutional challenges to s. 130(1)(a).

Postscript: According to the Supreme Court's website, the average time between the granting of leave and the hearing in 2017 was 7.4 months. The average time between the hearing and issuance of the judgment in 2017 was 4.6 months.