Tories ready to join battle over minimum sentences

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/02/2012 (5304 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A Conservative government with a long history of rhetorical explosions over activist judges is keeping its powder dry in the face of a court judgment that delivered a scathing broadside to mandatory minimum sentences.

An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled this week sending a first-time offender to prison for three years for possessing a loaded, illegal gun is “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday the mandatory minimum sentence in question became law in 2008 with the support of Liberal and New Democrat MPs.

“I think Canadians believe the courts have not been tough enough in dealing with gun crime and this government is determined to make sure we have laws that can deal with serious gun crime,” Harper added.

With a whole new group of mandatory minimum drug and sex sentences currently awaiting passage by the Conservative-dominated Senate under the government’s omnibus crime bill, the legal and constitutional battle may be just beginning.

Judge Anne Molloy ruled Monday reasonable people support reducing violent crime, but there is no “tangible evidence” mandatory minimums accomplish the goal. And she called the specific three-year minimum sentence “fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable” in the specific case of a “very foolish” poser, Leroy Smickle of Toronto.

Toronto lawyer Paul Calarco, a spokesman for the Canadian Bar Association, said the ruling, while not binding on other courts at this point, is significant.

“It has the potential to be extremely important,” Calarco said in an interview.

The ruling is certain to be appealed, he said, and once the Ontario Court of Appeal weighs in, the finding will be the law of Ontario. “I have no doubt it will wind up before the Supreme Court (of Canada).”

In the meantime, said the lawyer, Malloy’s ruling will “encourage people to bring additional challenges to the mandatory minimums based on this decision itself.”

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson suggested it’s up to Ontario to appeal the ruling although, he added, “I’ll look at this very carefully.”

He noted there are about 40 mandatory minimum sentences already in the Criminal Code.

“We’re confident that the legislation that we’ve put forward — and we continue to put forward — will meet any challenges,” said Nicholson.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty also waded in, reiterating his support for mandatory minimums for all gun offences.

“The message that we’re sending to all Ontarians is that we treat gun crimes very seriously here,” McGuinty said Tuesday in Toronto.

— The Canadian Press