Retroactive ban on use of Internet OK: judges

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court took steps Thursday to bring the law up to speed to protect children in a ruling allowing judges to ban convicted sexual predators from using the Internet.

The case turned on one narrow legal issue — whether a new law can be retroactively applied to case that predated it.

As a matter of legal principle, the high court rarely allows laws to be applied retroactively, especially when it comes to changes in criminal law on how punishment is to be meted out.

But in Thursday’s 7-2 ruling, the court made an exception, saying the retroactive imposition of a ban on Internet usage was called for because of “grave, emerging harms precipitated by a rapidly evolving social and technological context.”

The 2009 case centred on a B.C. man who pleaded guilty in an incest and child pornography case involving a victim under the age of 16. There is a courtordered publication ban on information identifying the victim.

The man was sentenced to nine years in prison.

The trial judge banned the man for seven years from using a computer to communicate with children under 16. That additional sentence was based on pre2012 Criminal Code provisions that prevented sex offenders from having contact with children. That older provision did not explicitly ban Internet use.

After the man was convicted, the Conservative government introduced the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which did create such a penalty. On the man’s appeal, the B.C. Court of Appeal used the 2012 law to impose the broad Internet ban.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld that retroactive application of the new law, saying the Internet prohibition constituted a “reasonable limit” on the man’s Charter rights.

“This evolving context has changed both the degree and nature of the risk of sexual violence facing young persons,” Justice Andromache Karakatsanis wrote for the majority.