Are you wondering what happens if you lie in a Canadian Court? When called to testify in court, a witness must take an oath. You do this by swearing or affirming to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth under the potential penalty of perjury.

Swearing the oath is a religious statement referring to God, whereas affirming the oath doesn’t have a spiritual aspect but holds the same legal weight.  A conviction of perjury in Canada can carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years. Canadian police and prosecutors rarely pursue perjury charges, and seldom, if ever, has someone been sent to prison for the 14-year maximum. 

Lying under oath in a judicial proceeding

Lying under oath in a judicial proceeding, intending to mislead a judge or a jury, is a crime against the administration of justice. Undermining a court’s authority by poisoning a proceeding with deceit is not a minor offence. Being found unreliable as a witness is one thing, but being called out by a judge for lying on a witness stand can carry much more dire consequences. 

Although rare, perjury charges can send a convicted person to prison or subject them to fines and other means of punishment. Other crimes against the administration of justice include “public mischief,” which involves making false statements to the police in the court of an investigation.

There is also the crime of providing “contradictory evidence,” where a person, for example, makes a statement in an affidavit or a court proceeding and later contradicts themselves on the witness stand in another trial.

What are the consequences of lying in a Canadian courtroom?

Canada’s parliament, meanwhile, also has the so-called “coercive” power to compel witness testimony to parliamentary committees under threat of perjury. 

But, like today, recommending and laying perjury charges by the House of Commons was rare, occurring only three times in the nineteenth century.

The damage done to a court proceedings’ integrity by a witness perjuring themselves can’t be understated, despite the reticence of Canadian prosecutors to pursue charges. Perjury by police officers and jailhouse informants, for example, has been cited as a major problem in cases of wrongful convictions. 

Family law cases, often involving bitter and acrimonious divorces and child custody battles, are also a hotbed for witnesses perjuring themselves.

This can be either through outright lies about their spouse or living situation or errors of omission, where pertinent information is left out of a witness’s testimony that may constitute important evidence. 

Understanding Perjury: The Legal Definition

The Supreme Court of British Columbia heard the case of Kneller v. Greenwood. In that case, which involved a common-law couple who had split up, the court heard two very different versions of events leading up to the breakup of the relationship.

According to Kneller, the claimant, the pair had been in a marriage-like relationship for nine years. They lived together, and she cooked, cleaned, and took care of most household duties while Greenwood was at work. 

Though they kept their finances somewhat separated, he added her to his medical and dental benefits plans, and the judge found they had “carried on as any married couple would.” He’d also given her a “promise ring” after claiming not to be ready for marriage. 

It was Greenwood’s testimony that offered a completely different story, though. He claimed in court that they didn’t live together and were “friends with benefits,” not common-law spouses. Despite admitting in an affidavit that they had lived together, Greenwood claimed he hadn’t read the affidavit before signing it. When you lie in court, you open yourself up to severe liability. 

What outcomes can result from providing false testimony in Canadian court?

The judge found him “disingenuous and lacking credibility,” saying his testimony was vague, unsubstantiated, and unsupported. His denials of physically abusing Kneller, the judge concluded, were “devoid of truth” and suggested Greenwood’s moral compass needed “recalibration.” 

But Greenwood was never charged with perjury, a common occurrence according to legal commentator Georgialee Lang, who wrote about the Kneller and Greenwood case following the B.C. Supreme Court’s ruling.

Lang wrote that, unlike the United States, where high-profile perjury cases against Martha Stewart and Major League Baseball stars Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds reflected the crime’s seriousness, Canada doesn’t tend to pursue people who perjure themselves in court.

The exception, she pointed out, was that of accused Air India bomber Inderjit Singh Reyet, who was charged with perjury and sent to nine years in jail. 

According to Lee, perjury is particularly problematic in family law cases. Canada must pursue those who lie on the stand for their “mockery” of taking an oath to be truthful.

Wrongful Convictions and Perjury by Police 

In Canada and the United States, major city police forces have been the sites of scandals and controversy over officers’ witness stand deception in criminal court cases.  For example, in 2016, four Toronto Police Officers were charged with perjury and obstruction of justice in a case involving planted evidence and a “fabricated” story about a man caught with heroin during a traffic stop. The officers were suspended with pay after a judge found they had colluded in their testimony to justify the traffic stop. 

In the United States, many major cities have what are known as “Brady lists,” which track police officer misconduct, including those found to have lied in court. The Brady list system is far from perfect, as a 2019 investigation by USA Today found.

Hundreds of police officers, the newspaper concluded, have been found to have been deceptive in criminal trials, leading to many convictions being overturned and wrongfully convicted individuals set free. 

Marilyn Mosby, a State’s Attorney in Baltimore, Maryland, even released a list of police officers she wouldn’t call to testify in court due to credibility issues and histories of past misconduct. Many of the officers on the list, 91 in total, were no longer employed by the department, and some were even in prison.

What happens if you lie in court conclusion

While lying during testimony in a courtroom can carry the punishment of being charged with perjury, offenders may never face criminal sanctions due to the difficulty in prosecuting and proving such cases. For example, even when swearing an affidavit, people only have to swear that the information is accurate. 

Just because perjury charges in Canada are rare, it doesn’t mean those who deceive a judge or jury don’t face consequences. In family court, they’ll lose their case and be publicly called out for having no credibility or a reckless disregard for the truth.

Should you have to go to court anytime in the future, planning on telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth is your safest bet to get a judge and jury on your side, and that’s no lie?  We hope you found this article on what happens if you lie in court helpful.

We hope you found this helpful article on what can happen if you lie in a Canadian court.