Understand Your Rights from Your Appeal Lawyer in Edmonton
Everyone is presumed innocent and everyone is entitled to due process. Investigations and trials must respect the individual’s right to basic fairness. Call Ravi Prithipaul, criminal defence lawyer, for professional legal advice.
If you are in police custody, you should ask to speak to a lawyer and then call a lawyer as soon as you can. Mr. Prithipaul, Edmonton criminal defence lawyer, would be pleased to offer advice that is specific to your situation, and will advise you about your right to silence and how to deal with your release.
One of the most important rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is in section 10:
- Everyone has the right on arrest or detention
- (a) to be informed promptly of the reasons therefore
- (b)to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right…
Whether a person is arrested or detained, that person has the right to know the reasons for his or her detention and the right to retain and instruct a lawyer without delay. Detention refers to situations where the police do not arrest an individual but gain control over that person, for example, by stopping and questioning them.
In general, the police are not obliged to believe your version of events and they often charge people who claim to be innocent. After the police investigation is complete, you will have the opportunity to give your side of the story in private to your lawyer and your lawyer will help you decide whether you should testify in court.
The police are allowed to search people as incidental to, that is, as part of, an arrest. If the police find items of interest (drugs, weapons, stolen property, or other forms contraband), the person arrested still has a right to remain silent and should say nothing except that he or she wishes to talk to a lawyer.