An Ultimate 'La Fin Du Monde': A TCP (Text, Context and Purpose) Surgery of the Fault Element in the Child Abandonment Case by the Supreme Court of Canada: Re-ADH Case [R. V. A.D.H: [2013] 2] - a Subjective Fault Element.

Abstract

The ADH case was a legal denouement of a 14 minutes saga of precipitous delivery of baby-boy by Ms. April Dawn Halkett, a lady negated thrice for 'preg-test ' with ' moon time' during entire pregnancy and charged with abandoning child u/s.218. While, underlying facts of the case was not disputed, the applicability of offence element: of subjective versus objective occupied the legal fraternity, till the Supreme Court of Canada on May 17, 2013 provided “a succinct primer on mens rea with a split verdict of 5:2.This commentary explores the persuasiveness of the split quorum of the SCC, and settles for subjective standards for s.218 offence. It projects the issues and taxonomy of analysis on the lines of broader context, text and purpose (scheme), acronymically termed TCP analysis in three parts. Part I situates the statute within the presumptions and intent of Canadian criminal law, tracing the lineage of s.218 English Laws of 1869 and 1891 find the subjective standard for s.218 offence in Canadian law. The textual examination of words like everyone, abandon, expose, willful, likely to alongwith scholastic opinion relied upon and default- non-mention issues have been waxed upon in Part-II of the discussion. Part-III follows the unbundling and deconstruction of schematic lay-out of the statute conclude that subjective elements determined s.218 offence. Conclusively, it has been stated that this judgment was akin Fin du Monde- 'an-end-of-the- world' emotion, as the SCC finally resolved the inconclusive jurisprudence on fault element related child abandonment: La Fin du Monde is also a unique beer from Quebec having extra chill, froth and gives good highs, but has splendid alternatives; our fin du Monde - the final May 17, 2013 SCC judgment, however has none!