R v Koza
Unreported Decision
R. v. Koza Ontario Court (Provincial Division) — Judge J.D. Smith February 10, 1995 | Brampton, Ontario (Unreported transcript)
Background
Herman Koza was charged with speeding under s. 128 of the Highway Traffic Act. Standard ticket. Standard service. And then somebody — after the document had already been handed to the defendant — decided to do a little penmanship.
The certificate of offence was altered post-delivery. The justice of the peace had apparently recognized the problem and flagged it to be quashed on the fail-to-respond. Somehow, it wasn't. The conviction went through anyway. Koza's agent, Mr. Burd, brought a motion. Ms. John appeared for the Crown. The Crown took one look at the two documents side by side and had nothing to say. Literally — when Judge Smith asked if the Crown wanted to respond, the answer was no.
The hearing was over before it started.
The Issue
Whether a certificate of offence altered after delivery to the defendant can support a valid conviction.
The Legal Framework
The relevant rule at the time — then Regulation 809, Section 13, now Regulation 200, Section 15 — is unambiguous: amendments to a certificate of offence can only be made by a court. Not by the issuing officer. Not by anyone else in the system. By the court, in court, with the defendant able to respond.
Once that document leaves the officer's hand and reaches the defendant, it's locked. The defendant is entitled to rely on what they were given. The charging document they received is the charging document. Full stop.
What happened in Koza wasn't a correction — it was a unilateral, post-service alteration to a document that had already been served on a citizen. That's not an administrative fix. That's a problem.
The Ruling
Judge Smith did not deliberate at length. He looked at both documents. He heard the motion. He turned to the Crown and asked if they had anything to say. They didn't. He called the certificate — choosing his words carefully, as he put it — garbage, and quashed the conviction.
Then he went further. He put it on the record directly: if anybody wants to play with documents after they've been generated, they are not going to get the support of this judge. He framed it as a matter of judicial independence — the judge standing between the citizen and the State — and said quashing the conviction was exactly that.
No fine had been paid. No order for return was needed. The matter was done.
Decision
Conviction quashed. Document altered after delivery to the defendant. Certificate fatally compromised.
Key Takeaways
Koza is as clean as it gets. No lengthy legal analysis. No competing arguments. No need for either. The document was changed after it was handed to the defendant, the rule said only a court could do that, and the conviction died on the spot.
What makes Koza worth keeping in your arsenal isn't just the outcome — it's the tone. Judge Smith wasn't troubled by the question. He called the altered certificate garbage from the bench, put his reasoning on the record in plain language, and moved on. The Crown's silence said the rest.
Read Koza alongside Wadood and the boundary becomes razor sharp. Wadood tells you that minor clerical corrections before filing, where the defendant wasn't misled, can survive s. 90. Koza is the other side of that line — where someone picked up a pen after service and thought nobody would notice. The court noticed. And it had no patience for it.
You don't get to revise the charging document once it's in the defendant's hands. The rule says so. The court said so. That's the end of the conversation.