Joseph Horrigan Law

03/22/2024

Under the Canadian Charter of rights and freedoms section 11 states “Any person charged with an offence has the right (e) not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause. This is the guiding principal which directs Ontario bail courts.This doesn’t however mean that everyone who is charged wi...

06/01/2023

Check out my blog post

One question all criminal lawyers get on almost a daily basis is what is going to happen to me now that I’ve been charged? For those dealing with criminal charges for the first time it is a very foreign and intimidating process they are thrust into. In this blog I will briefly explain the most com...

05/16/2022

Justice advocate David Milgaard, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent more than two decades in prison, has died.

04/09/2021

I have decided to offer my legal services free of charge to any local Peterborough business who receives a ticket for any violation of our government’s Covid regulations. As someone who relatively recently started his own practice, I have a small idea (opening a sole practitioner’s office comes with far less overhead than opening many other types of businesses) of all the stress, the risk and the hard work that goes into being a small business operator. I have been fortunate enough to practise in a field that has not been shut down by our government but so many others have not been as lucky.

I can only imagine how terrible and helpless it would feel to have something you have spent so much time and effort creating taken from you, all while your big box competition records record years. Small businesses stepped up and complied with all of the added covid restrictions. They implemented contact tracing, they complied with steeply reduced capacity limits, they complied with increased cleaning requirements, and in return for all of their efforts? The government shut them down.

I wish there were more I could do to support local businesses. I will continue to do my best to support these businesses with my purchases, and will continue to vocalize my disappointment to our politicians.

03/06/2021

R. v. Esseghaier - The Supreme Court has ruled that jury selection errors can be remedied if certain requirements are met: https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38861-eng.aspx

11/11/2020

10/19/2020

Following on the heels of a successful Spare-A-Square food-raiser earlier this year in March that collected 23,000 pounds of food, another vital citywide food drive to restock the dwindling shelves at Kawartha Food Share has begun. On Saturday, October 24th by 9 a.m., anyone who is not ill

10/08/2020

A great choice made by the SCC here. For those unfamiliar with the SCC's Case in Brief they are summaries of the courts decisions written in plain language ( you can see these at https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/index-eng.aspx). These summaries are valuable to the public as they increase access to justice but also highlight to the public how their daily lives are affected by the courts decisions. By allowing the Case in briefs to be freely shared to local newspapers the SCC is increasing the audience to this valuable resource and doing it's part to create a more informed society.

As part of our response to our survey earlier this year, and to celebrate the publication of the 100th Case in Brief last week, Chief Justice Wagner has announced that local newspapers are welcome to republish Cases in Brief if they wish. Read more: https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/news/en/item/6964/index.do

09/21/2020

08/10/2020

A botched police investigation, missing evidence, and a wrongful conviction in a city plagued with more than a hundred unsolved missing and murdered cases. Uncover: Dead Wrong takes us through the twisting, almost unbelievable story of Glen Assoun.

07/10/2020

Reference re Genetic Non-Discrimination Act - Parliament had the power to make it a crime to force someone to get genetic testing or reveal their test results, the Supreme Court has ruled: https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2020/38478-eng.aspx

06/10/2020

The Ontario Court of Justice has had its doors shut since March 16th due to Covid-19. This means individuals who had trials and preliminary inquiries scheduled have had those dates vacated, those whose matters were proceeding have slowed or stalled and those who have yet to have a first appearance h...