Minimum firearms sentences ‘cruel,’ court says
TORONTO— Mandatory minimum sentences for gun possession enacted by the federal Conservatives as part of a lawand-order agenda are “cruel and unusual punishment,” Ontario’s top court ruled Tuesday in striking the laws down as unconstitutional.
The sentencing laws, enacted as part of the Harper government’s 2008 omnibus bill, could see people sent to prison for three years for what would amount to a licence violation, the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled.
In that scenario, there is a “cavernous disconnect” between the severity of such an offence and the severity of the sentence, t he court ruled.
The law as written could capture anyone from a person keeping an unloaded restricted gun, with ammunition accessible, in their cottage when their licence requires it to be in their home, to a person standing on a street corner with a loaded gun in his back pocket “which he intends to use as he sees fit,” the court said.
“No system of criminal justice that would resort to punishments that ‘outrage standards of decency’ in the name of furthering the goals of deterrence and denunciation could ever hope to maintain the respect and support of its citizenry,” the court ruled.
The ruling is binding only in Ontario but judges across the country likely will take note.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay said the government is considering its next steps but it will “continue to defend the constitutionality of mandatory prison sentences for serious criminals.”
“In the past, Canadians lost faith in the justice system when the punishment did not fit the crime — it is our government’s commitment to restore confidence in the justice system,” MacKay said.
Mandatory minimums are not new — both Liberal and Conservative governments have enacted them. And NDP justice critic Francoise Boivin acknowledged her party voted in favour of the gun legislation in 2007. But, she said, the current government is treating the justice system with an us-versus-them mentality.