Criminal transactions/ solicitor-client privilege

The Supreme Court of Canada today raised a bulwark against government policies intended to weaken solicitor-client privilege in order to uncover criminal transactions.

The unanimous judgment in Canada v. Federation of Law Societies, written by Justice Thomas Cromwell on behalf of the court, renders provisions of Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act unconstitutional as they apply to lawyers.

The law — which still applies to non-legal professionals — would have required lawyers to record their clients’ financial transactions and make them available to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. It also would have given investigators search and seizure powers to obtain those records without a warrant.

“These provisions authorize sweeping searches of law offices which inherently risks breaching solicitor-client privilege,” the judgment states. “The search powers … as applied to lawyers, along with the inadequate protection of solicitor-client privilege … constitute a very significant limitation of the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Lawyers exempted from anti-terror law, SCC rules