Hay River (Aug 18/03) - A territorial court judge has overruled an RCMP privacy policy.

The issue arose during a case in Hay River on Aug. 8 when Chief Judge Robert Halifax ordered a pre-sentence report prepared by Probation Services.

However, probation officer Cindy Caudron advised Halifax that the RCMP in the NWT have recently begun to enforce a national policy. It no longer provides criminal record checks to Probation Services and victims' names are blacked out on prosecutors' information sheets.

"It's going to provide a problem for us," Caudron told the judge, explaining the policy makes it much more difficult to prepare pre-sentence reports.

That didn't sit well with the NWT's chief judge.

"Aren't the RCMP part of the administration of justice, or are they off on their own somewhere?" Halifax commented.

He ordered the Crown and the RCMP to provide the information to Caudron.

Crown attorney Darren Mahoney responded that he was not sure the Crown could give out the information.

"I don't care about the RCMP policy," Halifax said, explaining the policy does not circumvent Criminal Code provisions for pre-sentence reports.

Halifax ordered the information provided within 48 hours.

Mahoney then noted there is no procedural guarantee the information would not end up in the wrong hands.

The judge was still unmoved and again stressed to Mahoney that the court had given him a directive.

"If it is not done, be prepared to pay the price," Halifax warned.