The Harper government has lost some very public court battles lately,
highlighting current tensions between Parliament and the judiciary over
mandatory minimum sentencing tools. The government's most recent defeat
came in R. v. Michael. In this case, a prominent Ontario Court
judge in Ottawa, Justice David Paciocco, convicted a homeless, alcohol
and drug addicted 26-year-old named Shaun Michael of nine offences,
including assault against a peace officer. Michael faced $900 in
mandatory victim surcharges in addition to four months already spent in
custody and two years of probation. Justice Paciocco refused to order
the mandatory victim surcharges. He found that a $900 fine would be
cruel and unusual punishment when combined with prison and probation,
contrary to Section 12 of the Charter. And so the Court struck down the
Criminal Code section creating the mandatory victim surcharge regime as
unconstitutional. Written by Lincoln Caylor and Gannon Beaulne, and
published in the Ottawa Citizen.
Article
In Defence of Mandatory Minimum Sentences and Surcharges
August 21, 2014
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