Sunday, February 07, 2010

Is Canada's Nudity Ban Unconstitutional?

That's precisely what attorney Clayton Ruby intends to prove in defending Bracebridge resident Brian Coldin against two nudity charges. Due to weakness in evidence, two charges have already been dropped.
“We’re pleased to have them withdrawn, because that means the Crown’s acknowledged they can’t prove them,” said Ruby. “(And that’s) after getting the consent of the Attorney General (to have the charges laid), I might add. I wonder what he was told?”...In defending Coldin, Ruby said he will be raising the constitutionality of Section 174 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which states that it is an offence if one is nude in a public place, or is nude in a private place, but is exposed to public view.
Earlier stories here, here, here and here.
Brian Coldin's Facebook page is here.

2 comments:

mcibear said...

This case scares me. As a canadain, I have had freeedom of knowing the under current canadian law it is almost impossible for the crown to get a conviction. As such as long as I have a half copetent layer I will never be convicted. If the current law is declared uncostitional it would bring it into the public eye and there would likely be new ledgisation put in place that would actualy be effective. I have no interest in being convited of something that should not be a crime and under the current law is vurtualy unenfosrceble.

Paul Rapoport said...

One may always fear that getting rid of something bad will bring something worse. You try to prevent the something worse in advance: that's much easier than trying to do what Mr. Ruby says here --- although more power to him.