Article content

In one of her final decisions in the criminal law, Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has sown the seeds of chaos, says one of her colleagues.

Judge Michael Moldaver was writing in dissent of the majority’s 5-2 decision, written by the departing McLachlin and released Friday, in a case called R v Marakah.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Christie Blatchford: Top court ruling on text messages protects predators, says dissenting judge Back to video

McLachlin heard her last case on the bench Thursday and formally retires next week.

The Marakah case revolves around text messages, and whether it’s reasonable for a sender to have a reasonable expectation of privacy over messages once they land in a recipient’s phone.

McLachlin in effect said that it is; Moldaver said that’s absurd.

In a savage dissent, Moldaver says McLachlin’s decision will add to “the complexity and length of criminal trial proceedings” in a system already stressed to breaking, overburden police and prosecutors and “leads inexorably” to the conclusion that sexual predators who send explicit or threatening messages to a child may be able to prevent those messages being seized by police without a warrant – even if the child herself or a parent hands over the phone with the messages.