Comment Re:Okay... (Score 1) 363
The person still was in possession of something that indicates their guilt, punish them. As well, punish the people who violated his rights by performing the illegal search.
That's possible, but easier said than done, and would require fundamental changes to the way the justice system operates. Who would prosecute the case? The Crown (government), whose agents were the ones who violated the person's rights in the first place? The judge? Our rules of procedure aren't set up to handle prosecution from the bench---who would be the disinterested arbiter, then?
But by no mean should the public be punished by allowing a villain to remain at large.
The Canadian courts have overlooked rights violations in criminal cases before, under the grounds that to dismiss the case would bring the justice system into disrepute (i.e it would be really, really bad). In this case, if all the guy did was to access child porn online, then there's a good chance that whether he is punished or goes free, the number of abused children won't change. Child porn law is like tax law. If one guy doesn't pay his taxes, it doesn't really make a difference, but the country is in big trouble if lots of people don't pay their taxes, so we prosecute those who don't pay their taxes.
Now, if he were directly producing the child porn, it might be a different story.
