Welcome to the Criminal Law Notebook

,

a free resource of Canadian criminal law written
by Peter Dostal.

1403 articles

The Criminal Law Notebook

This site reviews a variety of topics in Canadian criminal law. It is intended to be used as a reference for those seeking to understand technical elements of the law better. It will be particularly useful to practitioners, police officers and law students who need a convenient way to look up legislation, principles, and case law. Citations include links to CanLII whenever possible. The reader is assumed to have prior knowledge of criminal law.

The site has become a leading source of free online information for criminal law with more than 2 million pageviews each year.

To learn more about this project, read the About The Criminal Law Notebook page.

Please feel free to contact the author, Peter Dostal, LLB, at peter.dostal@gmail.com with any comments. You can also DM me on LinkedIn for article or topic requests.

Want to help keep the Criminal Law Notebook free? Click here to make a donation.

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Browse over 1403 articles

General Topics

The articles are divided into five core categories:

Case Digests

You can also browse by case digest topic.

Recent news

October 10, 2025

Bill C-291 came into force. It replaces the term “child pornography” with “child sexual abuse and exploitation material”.

April 8, 2025

Bill S-205 came into force. It modifies the Code reversing bail onus for offences of intimate partner violence and new forms of peace bond for IPV.

January 14, 2025

Several small updates to the site. Platform upgrade allows font, margin and background colour changes. I have also added a feedback form at the bottom of every page for ease of flagging error or omissions.

August 8, 2024

Pour ceux d'entre vous qui travaillent dans le système de justice pénale en utilisant la langue française. Il existe maintenant une traduction française (expérimentale) du site Web : https://carnetdroitpenal.ca

July 7 to 14, 2024

I have migrated the site to a new server. It has caused some problems that I believe are now finally all resolved. Please be patient if anything more comes up in the next few days.

March 1, 2024

Supreme Court of Canada in R v Bykovets, 2024 SCC 6 (CanLII), per Martin J (5:4) finds that IP addresses are protected by a reasonable expectation of privacy and its seizure by police can be protected under s. 8 of the Charter.

Older news... or LinkedIn or X/Twitter

External Links

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Disclaimer

Any views or opinions expressed within this website are those of the author alone.

Nothing should be construed as official statements of any governmental or non-governmental organization.

There is no guarantee whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or currency of the information provided in this website.

Nothing here should be taken as legal advice.

See Disclaimer for details.

Other languages

Pour ceux d'entre vous qui travaillent dans le système de justice pénale en utilisant la langue française. Il existe maintenant une traduction française (expérimentale) du site Web : https://carnetdroitpenal.ca