A 2005 ruling by Ontario Court of Justice Justice Bruce Duncan exempting a convicted child pornography offender from Canada's National Sex Offender Registry, became the leading precedent for a series of decisions that narrowed Parliament's sex offender registration law, according to the Supreme Court of Canada. 

In R. v. Have (2005 ONCJ 27), Justice Duncan declined to order a man convicted of two counts of possessing child pornography to register under the newly enacted Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA).

At the time, SOIRA generally required convicted sex offenders to register with police, but judges retained discretion to exempt offenders if the impact of registration would be "grossly disproportionate" to the public interest.

Justice Duncan found the case qualified for that exemption.

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The court accepted evidence that the offender did not present the type of risk associated with a "predatory stranger" and had not demonstrated a propensity to commit contact sexual offences. Justice Duncan concluded the benefit of placing him on the registry was "negligible," while the impact on the offender's liberty and privacy was "substantial."

The decision quickly became one of the most influential SOIRA rulings in the country.

When the Supreme Court of Canada revisited the constitutionality of the registry in R. v. Ndhlovu in 2022, it specifically identified Justice Bruce Duncan's decision in Have as the starting point for a line of cases that progressively narrowed who courts required to register.

According to the Supreme Court, courts following Have increasingly exempted offenders who were not considered "predatory strangers," including child pornography offenders, offenders who knew their victims, historical offenders and opportunistic offenders. The Court said this body of case law significantly narrowed the practical application of Parliament's sex offender registry. 

Although the Supreme Court ultimately struck down Parliament's later attempt to make registration automatic for most sexual offenders in Ndhlovu, it nevertheless recognized Justice Duncan's 2005 decision as the foundational case that shaped nearly two decades of judicial interpretation of SOIRA.

The case remains one of the clearest examples of how a single Ontario Court of Justice ruling can influence criminal law across Canada, with Justice Bruce Duncan's decision continuing to be cited by the country's highest court as the origin of a jurisprudential shift that narrowed when convicted sex offenders could be required to register with police.