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Criminal Law: Statutes & Cases

This guide is prepared to help readers do legal research on criminal law.

Statutes and Regulations

The major criminal statutes are:

Criminal Code, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46
Youth Criminal Justice Act, S.C. 2002, c. 1

To browse a more complete list of statutes and regulations on criminal law:

Other resources such as CanLII and Justice Canada can also be used to search federal statutes and regulations. For Ontario provincial statutes and regulations there is e-Laws.

Cases

Some reporters of Canadian criminal cases are:

Reporters such as the Supreme Court Reports, Dominion Law Reports, and Ontario Reports also contain criminal cases.

Another good way to find relevant case law is by checking an annotated version of the Criminal Code, which will provide citations to cases that cite a particular part of the code. Here are a few good examples:

Online Resources

The following databases provide online access to legislation and case law: