Law360 Canada ( February 6, 2026, 11:48 AM EST) -- Appeal by the Crown from a judgment of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal which affirmed the acquittal of Fox. Fox was a criminal defence lawyer whose client was the subject of wiretap authorization. The wiretap authorization contained several standard terms to protect solicitor-client privilege including requiring a monitor to discontinue the interception if they reasonably believed a solicitor was a party to the communication. A telephone call between Fox and her client was intercepted and entirely recorded. A civilian employee monitoring the calls kept listening even when it was clear that a lawyer was one of the parties. A judge determined that the first part of the conversation was not privileged and could be accessed by the Crown. The second part was deemed to be privileged and could not be accessed by anyone without order of the court. Based on the non-privileged part of the call, Fox was charged with attempting to obstruct or defeat justice. She brought an application seeking the exclusion of the non-privileged part of the call. The trial judge found that Fox’s rights under s. 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) had not been breached describing the monitor’s breach of the authorization as mere inadvertence. However, since Fox could not invoke the innocence at stake exception, her right to a fair trial under ss. 7 and 11(d) of the Charter was infringed. The non-privileged part of the call was excluded from evidence and Fox was acquitted. The majority of the Court of Appeal upheld the acquittal. The issues were whether a lawyer charged with a criminal offence could invoke the “innocence at stake” exception to solicitor-client privilege recognized in R. v. McClure (McClure) and R. v. Brown (Brown) to seek access to their client’s solicitor-client communications for use in their own defence and whether the evidence obtained through a breach of s. 8 of the Charter should be excluded as the Crown had conceded that s. 8 had been breached....