Ruling on prison segregation law delayed

Ontario’s top court has asked the federal government for more information before deciding whether Canada’s prison segregation laws will become invalid next month.

Speaking for the Appeal Court on Wednesday, Chief Justice George Strathy said the panel wanted details of how proposed legislation will address the concerns of a lower court judge, who last year declared the existing law unconstitutional — then stayed his declaration for 12 months to allow Ottawa to fix the situation.

The higher court also asked for government submissions on what action it would take if the stay is extended beyond Dec. 18, when it is due to expire.

The Court of Appeal also reserved judgment on a challenge from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which argued that last year’s ruling didn’t go far enough to protect inmates from the harms of extreme isolation.

Last year, Superior Court Justice Frank Marrocco ruled that isolating prisoners for more than five days in a process known as administrative segregation was unconstitutional. Marrocco said the system lacked proper safeguards. However, he said banning the practice immediately could be disruptive and dangerous, so he suspended his ruling for one year to give Parliament a chance to fix the problem. Marrocco also said the law was otherwise sound because the harms of severe isolation — even when the mentally ill or young adults were involved — could be mitigated by appropriate monitoring. Inmates are placed in administrative segregation to maintain security in the event an inmate poses a risk to themselves or others and no other reasonable alternative is available. They are to be released from administrative segregation at the earliest possible time. In submissions on Wednesday, Michael Rosenberg of the liberties association called the government’s request to extend Marrocco’s stay “extraordinary.” The government was asking the court to “perpetuate an unconscionable system” and granting the request would give the administration of justice a “black eye,” Rosenberg told the panel.