Making the bad guys pay is a sound idea 鈥� but before we make people pay, let鈥檚 be sure they really are bad guys. B.C. has developed a multi-layered system of forfeiture, which allows the government to seize money and other assets from criminals. The idea is to make sure they don鈥檛 benefit from their offences, and to make sure that society does benefit by putting the money into crime prevention and other programs that help the rest of us.
Few people would argue with the goals. It鈥檚 fundamental to our understanding of justice that someone who commits a crime should not only be punished for it, but should not benefit from it.
B.C.鈥檚 system, however, allows the government to seize assets of people who haven鈥檛 been convicted of a crime. That is clearly unjust because it is punishing someone who might be innocent.
If this seems like an arcane issue that only applies to lowlifes who deserve what they get, remember that anyone can be charged with a crime. The police don鈥檛 always get it right. Every one of us has an interest in this because any of us could be charged with a crime we didn鈥檛 commit.
We rely on the justice system to exonerate us of the criminal charges, but forfeiture can happen before those charges have been tested in court.
In fact, the government can seize your property even if you haven鈥檛 been charged with anything.
The government now has three ways to go after the proceeds of crime. Criminal forfeiture, which was once the only method, means that after a conviction, the Crown can seize cash or property that is the proceeds of crime. Under civil forfeiture, the government tries to prove in court 鈥渙n the balance of probabilities鈥� that assets were acquired through criminal activity; it鈥檚 a less-onerous burden of proof than 鈥渂eyond a reasonable doubt,鈥� which is the standard in criminal cases.
The third method is administrative forfeiture, which allows an employee of the Ministry of Justice to deem that property worth less than $75,000 was probably acquired by crime. As long as no one challenges the seizure within 60 days, the province can keep it. Administrative forfeiture applies to anything except real estate.
The law allows the director of civil forfeiture to seize property if he or she 鈥渉as reason to believe鈥� the property is the proceeds of crime.
Since the law came into force in 2006, B.C. has seized more than $30 million in 560 civil forfeitures and 543 administrative forfeitures.
The government defends administrative forfeiture by saying it saves money on court costs and saves valuable time that would be taken up with drawn-out procedures.
Rounding up suspects in the dead of night and sentencing them without trial in secret courtrooms would also save time and money, but we don鈥檛 do it because we recognize the dangers. Those time-consuming procedures are called the justice system, and they exist to protect ordinary citizens from the whims of faceless officials.
Allowing someone in the Justice Ministry to snatch the property of people who have not been convicted of or even charged with an offence undermines the protections we all believe the law provides us. We have an unspoken contract as citizens, which states that if we obey the law, the criminal justice system will leave us alone. If the government can take our property on nothing more than suspicion, how can we trust that contract?
When the courts have ruled that a crime has been committed, the government can and should seize any proceeds of that crime. But if there is no guilty verdict, keep your hands off our stuff.
