Judge lifts publication ban in sex assault case but accused can’t yet be named

A Nunavut judge revoked a court-ordered ban on identifying a man facing sexual assault charges but imposed another ban that doesn’t yet allow the man’s name to be published.

“It’s a unique case,” Justice Christian Lyons said Tuesday, comparing it to a “law school exam.”

The man faces charges under the Criminal Code as well as charges under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, related to allegations from before he was 18. The act prohibits media from publishing his name or any identifying details related to the allegations from his youth.

On April 11, Justice of the Peace Amanda Soper extended that ban to the adult charges after hearing an oral request from the man’s lawyer, Alan Regel. That ban prevented Nunatsiaq News and other media outlets from publishing the man’s name in connection to the adult charges as well.

That discretionary ban resulted in a month-long litigation.

Regel argued the ban was needed to prevent “jury contamination,” while Alyssa Holland, a lawyer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, argued the ban constituted an infringement on freedom of expression.

On Tuesday, Lyons revoked the ban, saying Soper imposed it “without jurisdiction.”

But even though the man can now be named during future proceedings, Lyons said his name shouldn’t be published in immediate reports about the proceedings about the publication ban.

Because media have written about the man’s application for the discretionary publication ban and mentioned his youth charges, it would be easy to “link” those articles to the accused’s name if it was public now, Lyons said.

That would violate the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Crown prosecutor Carleen Ready disagreed.

“What is required is responsible publishing, not the imposition of an additional publication ban,” she said.

Still, Lyons imposed the latest ban.