In addition to other defects that potentially could be cured by a modest judicial redrafting of the provision, section 488.1 of the Criminal Code was fundamentally flawed in that it failed to ensure that clients were given a reasonable opportunity to exercise their constitutional prerogative to assert or waive their privilege but, instead, established a procedure whereby the privilege could be lost if the lawyers whose law offices were being searched did not advance claims of solicitor-client privilege on a timely basis. Arbour J stated (at para. 24):
It is critical to emphasize here that all information protected by the solicitor-client privilege is out of reach for the state. It cannot be forcibly discovered or disclosed and it is inadmissible in court. It is the privilege of the client and the lawyer acts as a gatekeeper, ethically bound to protect the privileged information that belongs to his or her client. Therefore, any privileged information acquired by the state without the consent of the privilege holder is information that the state is not entitled to as a rule of fundamental justice.
Accordingly, the proper course of action was to declare section 488.1 unconstitutional and strike it down pursuant to section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982.