Fine in lieu of forfeiture for money spent on legal fees : Amende compensatoire pour l'argent dépensé pour des frais légaux

Code came into force in January 1989, a number of the major elements of section 462.34 as it reads today were missing: • the requirement for the applicant to use other assets or means before being allowed to use the seized/restrained property; • the obligation for the judge to make sure that no other person appears to be the lawful owner of or lawfully entitled to possession of the property referr [...] One of the reasons for these amendments was to provide a better framework for the entire issue of legal expenses, to give judges certain parameters when deciding on the reasonableness of the legal expenses, and to give the Attorney General the opportunity to make observations on this question. [...] At pages 479-480, the Court indicated the following: In the case of an application under s. 462.34, the judge must balance the applicant's need for legal assistance against the possibility that property which will turn out to be the proceeds of crime will be used to benefit a person who may be shown to have acquired the property through the commission of a criminal offence. [...] The Court specified that the imposition of a fine for the money released for legal expenses does not alter the default time for the fine relating to the property because the term remains within the range set out in subparagraph 462.37(4)(a)(iii) Cr. [...] If one of the objectives is to ensure that crime does not pay, use of the proceeds of crime must be a basis for ordering a fine instead of forfeiture of the property and cannot be a basis for mitigating the impact of the measure.