The Rezayi Case and Police Oversight: The Mirage of the European Model

In March 2026, the Bureau des enquêtes indépendantes (BEI) submitted its report to the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions (DPCP), which must now decide whether criminal charges are warranted. The community is waiting.

But this wait raises a question that Quebec decision-makers too often avoid asking frankly: does the applicable law — whether Canadian or European — truly allow criminal liability to be imposed on a police officer who fires within seconds?

The answer, however uncomfortable, is: rarely.

Under Canadian criminal law, section 25 of the Criminal Code of Canada authorizes peace officers to use force in the execution of their duties. Subsection 25(3) is particularly determinative: it allows the use of lethal force when an officer believes, on reasonable grounds, that it is necessary to protect against death or grievous bodily harm.

In R. v. Nasogaluak, the Supreme Court of Canada was explicit: the law does not require police officers to use the least amount of force possible — only force that is reasonable in light of the perceived threat.² The « split-second decision » doctrine, reflected in decisions such as R. v. Baxter,³ reinforces this approach: requiring an officer to exhaust every alternative in a life-threatening situation unfolding within seconds would be, according to the courts, an unrealistic standard.

It is precisely this legal framework that the Rezayi family’s lawyers are confronting. They lament that the officers did not attempt any de-escalation measures before resorting to lethal force, and argue that the agents committed highly negligent and reckless actions. These civil allegations, filed before the Superior Court of Quebec, are morally compelling. But in criminal law, they must overcome the protection of section 25 — and that bar is very high.

Faced with this finding, certain lawyers and civil rights advocates call for Canada to adopt the European model, grounded in the « absolute necessity » standard.

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides, in its Article 2, that the deprivation of life shall not constitute a violation of the right to life when it results from the use of force which is no more than absolutely necessary, in particular to defend any person from unlawful violence, to effect a lawful arrest, or to quell a riot.

On paper, the difference is real and substantial.

This planning requirement is precisely what was missing from the SPAL intervention on September 21, 2025. If Canada were to adopt a similar standard, lawyers could argue that the total absence of de-escalation, the ten-second delay, and the lack of adequate coordination amount to a violation of an upstream legal obligation — not merely a poor decision in the moment.

But this is where reformist rhetoric must collide with the facts. The « absolute necessity » standard produces, in practice, results remarkably similar to the Canadian standard in terms of police criminal liability.

France records the highest absolute figures, with 107 deaths over this period, followed by Ireland, Spain and Germany. These States are all bound by the ECHR and its absolute necessity requirement.

In other words, even the European human rights tribunal mainly condemns the lack of transparency and investigation, not lethal force as such.

The European Court of Human Rights explicitly recognizes that Article 2 cannot impose an unrealistic burden on the State and its agents in the performance of their duties, to the detriment of their lives and those of others. This judicial restraint — formulated differently, but structurally equivalent to the Canadian split-second decision doctrine — leads to the same acquittals, the same dismissals, the same statistical results.

Adopting an « absolute necessity » standard in Canada would not guarantee the indictment — let alone the conviction — of the officer who fired on Nooran Rezayi.

The DPCP would still have to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the officer did not sincerely believe, in that ten-second instant, that his life or that of a colleague was in danger. European tribunals, faced with comparable facts, also defer to the officer’s subjective perception on the ground.

This infrastructure includes strict legal obligations to immediately notify the oversight body, without it being possible for a police force to interview witnesses itself or collect videos for one hour and thirty-six minutes before contacting the BEI; independent forensic teams deployed without delay; and an institutional culture in which the contamination of a scene is treated for what it is: an obstruction of justice.

The DPCP has indicated that the Rezayi file will be handled by prosecutors who do not collaborate with the SPAL, in order to avoid any apparent conflict of interest. That is a minimum. It is not a reform.