.. R. 414. MICHEL LALIBERTE,.............. ......... APPELLANT. AND
THE QUEEN,.............
...
...... RESPONDENT. ON APPEAL FROM THE COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH FOR LOWER qANADA (APPEAL SIDE.)
The Prosecutrix, in an indictment for rape, was asked in cross. examination, after she had declared she had not previously had con. nection with a man, other than the prisoner, whether she remem. bered having been in the milkhouse of G_ with two persons named M-, one after the other.
Held,-That the witness may object, or the Judge may, in his dis. cretion, tell the witness she is or she is not bound to answer the question; but the Court ought not to have refused to allow the question to be put because the Counsel for the prosecution ob. jected to the question.
Held also,--That, since the passing of 32 and 33 Vict., ch. sect. 80, repealing so much of ch. 77 of Cons. Stat. L. C. as would authorize any Court of the Province of Quebec to order or grant a new trial in any criminal case; and of 32 and 33 Vict. ch. 36, repealing sect. 63 of ch. 77 Cons. Stat. L C., the Court of Queen's Bench of the Province of Quebec has no power to grant a new trial, and that the Supreme Court of Canada, exercising the ordinary appellate powers of the Court., under sects. 38 and 49 of 38 Vict., ch. 11, should give the judgment which the Court whose judgment is appealed from ought to have given, viz.: to reverse the judgment which has been given, and order prisoner's discharge.
The prisoner was convicted of rape at the sittings of the Court of Queen's Bench for the Province of Quebec, held in the month of October last, before the Honorable Mr. Justice Plamondon, one of the Judges of the PESENT:-.The Chief Justice, and Ritchie, Strong, Taachereau, Fournier, and Henry, J. J.