R c Yombo: Affirming and Obscuring the De Minimis Defense

Abstract

The Quebec Court of Appeal's decision in Yombo c R provided the first appellate guidance on the existence of the de minims defence. The case nevertheless failed to adopt a clear theoretical rational for the defence. I contend that conceptualizing the defence within the abuse of process doctrine would bring greater coherency to the de minims defence. I also use the Yombo case to illustrate how this approach would work in practice.

Keywords: De Minimis Non Curat Lex; criminal law

JEL Classification: K14; K19