[Rerun]

Looks like some very learned people disagree with Baker...

Whether or not the Senate votes to suspend embattled senators Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin will have no impact on any potential criminal proceedings, legal experts say.

That view goes contrary to what Liberal Sen. George Baker told reporters and the Senate itself this week.

“If these motions are passed, it will foreclose the police in any subsequent criminal proceeding,” Baker warned. “It’s a brilliant move legally by the prime minister’s office because they would not then be called as witnesses in any criminal proceeding.”
Baker made his argument on the principle of “double jeopardy”: a legal defence that means a person cannot be tried twice on the same charges. Baker said that because the Senate is a judicial body, any ruling coming from the red chamber would prevent similar charges from being laid by a criminal court.

“Regardless of what happens in the Senate, it has no bearing on whether or not a criminal offence could be prosecuted against these people,” said Toronto lawyer Jonathan Dawe, who specializes in criminal and constitutional law.

“Just because something is a judicial proceeding doesn’t mean that it serves as a trigger for double jeopardy. “

Dawe said the Senate is indeed a judicial body, but it cannot try people for criminal offences; only the courts can do that. And since the Senate can’t hand down a criminal conviction, there’s no double jeopardy case if a charge is then laid by a criminal court.
“It’s a technical area of law and I can see why someone might make a mistake, but my understanding is that the senator’s concerns are not well-founded,” Dawe said.

It’s a point echoed by now-retired House of Commons law clerk Rob Walsh.

http://www.canada.com/news/Reality+c...197/story.html