No, I mean for the reasons that have already been expressed, I don't think you can have judicial notice of an essential element of an offence. With the reverse onus that I talked about, we would not know if it was justified under section 1 until that issue was finally litigated. That goes back to my issue: I think there are other reforms that can be done that will not raise any arguable charter issues but that could also deal with the issues of trial length and trial complexities that you've heard of.
On May 26th, 2009. See this statement in context.