Global News: 'The Supreme Court of Canada will issue a constitutional ruling today about extensions to Canada’s rape shield law.
'The Criminal Code says evidence of a complainant’s prior sexual activities that are unrelated to the charges at hand can only be admitted with permission of a judge following a private hearing.
'The court ruling today will determine whether some extensions to those laws made in 2018 violate the rights of an accused to a fair trial.
'Rape shield laws are intended to prevent a complainant in a sexual assault case from having their sexual history used to discredit them.'
Example: A man and a woman have been having sex on-and-off for 2 months. He breaks it off and begins dating another woman. Incensed and scorned, his former lover accuses him of rape. If the Supreme Court rules that the rape shield law doesn't violate the accused's right to a fair trial, then the accused man might not be able to raise the nature of their relationship and the fact that they were routinely having sex; that it is likely she retroactively determined that an instance of consensual sex was "rape" because he ended their relationship sometime afterwards.