Clicked on the link for today. Is it possible that there's some kind of "Limited Access Publication"? My eyes went straight to number 7 on the list, assault, possessing weapon for dangerous purposes, uttering threats, etc. Obviously total speculation that it's that specific one, but I'm curious if anyone knows the charges he's been hit with?
I have no experience with BC courts, and little experience with current dealings in Ontario (they publish a lot less details, even in the daily court digests in the papers and are generally a lot more wary about the effects of media on both the accused and alleged victims nowadays) but it was pretty rare for a publication ban to be enacted on an initial appearance as there's very little discussion regarding the facts of the case, and the public has a right to be informed.
IME what happens is an accused person will make a first appearance using "duty counsel" which is a court-appointed attorney (in the courts I was involved with the local lawyers take turns doing it) they're generally not bad lawyers but it isn't really their job to defend you, it's mostly to do administrative stuff like remand your case to give you time to actually hire a representative. They aren't going to do a ton of work they don't absolutely have to (because they're busy as hell).
Usually, what would happen is on the next appearance the lawyer would argue for a publication ban and if granted it would be interim until a judge could take time and mull the case over and decide if it serves the public good to continue the publication ban in the future, when some of the facts of the case will actually come out (over preliminary hearings etc).
I believe now, in certain cases like sexual assaults and possibly cases with a lot of media coverage that there
might be some kind of mechanism to allow for an immediate publication ban but I have not been involved with this stuff in probably 8-10 years so I am not sure, but it does seem that way from some of the cases I have paid attention to in the last few years.
EDIT: What do you know, according to
this document, there are "automatic" publication bans in BC but they only relate to sex offences, family court, and young offenders. The rest are subject to a hearing
and all non-"automatic" requests to do so are published through an rss feed (or if you like through feedreader web client).
It looked good, but, "Unlawful confinement or imprisonment" would seem to be pushing it.
I know of a case where someone was convicted of unlawful confinement for holding someone's hand while they were trying to leave an argument.
I'm so horribly embarrassed that my provincial government can't do information services correctly.
Unfortunately, they've opted to break up each docket by court location rather than publishing a large list and sorting it by location. While Yaniv is closes to Surrey, it's possible that he could wind up in:
Surrey
Port Coquitlam
New Westminster
Abbotsford
Vancouver
all depending on the case load of each location. I have ordered the above list in what I believe to be ascending distance for Yaniv to attend. Checking these daily sounds like a job for a little shell script and cronjob.
On the plus side, the links are hard links. In Vancouver area they decide where appearances will be made by the caseload of each individual court? Once the case starts working its way through do you think that all the appearances will be at the same location, or do you think it is subject to change?
I will post links for anyone interested to the dockets at the locations you mentioned (for anyone interested).
In Ontario, it mostly goes by which police dept laid the original charges. For example, in my area if the OPP pick you up you would go to a specific jail and courthouse, but the city police also have overlapping jurisdiction with the OPP (the provincial police, they sort of fill the same rolls as RCMP do in BC, at least from the description I read in the main thread) and if you were to be arrested by the city police you would go to a different jail in a whole other city and your court would be in that town as well.
www.bcassessment.ca
archive.li
youtu.be
