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R.E.M., at para. 16. These purposes “are fulfilled if the reasons, read in context,
show why the judge decided as he or she did” (para. 17).

[13] In R.E.M., this Court also explained that a trial judge’s failure to explain why he
rejected an accused’s plausible denial of the charges does not mean the reasons are

deficient as long as the reasons generally demonstrate that, where the complainant’s
evidence and the accused’s evidence conflicted, the trial judge accepted the

complainant’s evidence. No further explanation for rejecting the accused’s evidence
is required as the convictions themselves raise a reasonable inference that the

accused’s denial failed to raise a reasonable doubt (see para.66)” [emphasis added]

…

(78) In R v Gatzke, one of the three grounds of appeal advanced was that the trial judge did

not provide sufficient reasons for appellate review of his assessment of the evidence of the
appellant, in support of which the appellant cited the decision in R v Vuradin. The appellant

also relied on the decision in R v Gharabaghi in which Arnold-Bailey J. said that, “There is

an enhanced duty to give reasons in cases where the sole issue is credibility, and in
particular, a trial judge must explain a finding of credibility against the accused.”

(79) In response, the Crown submitted that inadequate reasons of a trial judge would rarely

justify appellate intervention and that the path leading to the conviction in the case was
readily discernible. The Crown submitted that a trial judge’s failure to state explicitly why he

rejected the evidence of the appellant was not a fatal error so long as the path to conviction

was clear, such as where the accused’s evidence was self-evidently incredible or unreliable.

(80) In determining the appeal, Associate Chief Justice Cullen said at paragraphs 61-62:

[61] In my view, the trial judge's failure to provide any explanation for rejecting the
appellant’s evidence, and indeed in failing to even expressly communicate that he

did reject the appellant's evidence is, in the evidentiary context of the present case, a
reversible error.

[62] This is not a case where the appellant's evidence was a bare denial in the face
of the evidence of two independent eyewitnesses. Nor is it a case where the

appellant's evidence was “self-evidently incredible or unreliable". [emphasis added]
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