Pubdate: Mon, 18 Apr 2016 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2016 The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456 Page: A12 Referenced: Supreme Court Judgment: R. v. Lloyd: http://mapinc.org/url/Nh60XRfI SCRAP THESE LAWS Supreme Court Tears Down Another Harper-Era Crime Law Bit by bit, the Harper government's punitive and discriminatory "tough on crime" agenda is being dismantled. And not a moment too soon. The Supreme Court of Canada tore another brick out of the wall on Friday when it struck down two Harper-era laws. One was a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison for repeat drug offenders. The other prevented a person with a previous conviction from getting extra credit for time served in custody before trial. Taken together, the laws tended to reduce the discretion available to judges to tailor sentences to the specific circumstances of a crime and a criminal. They forced them to punish professional criminals and hapless addicts in the same way. They served the former government's political purposes, but did not serve either justice or public safety. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, who wrote the mandatory-minimum decision on behalf of a 6-3 court majority, argued that the law covers a wide range of conduct - from a career drug dealer out to profit from moving large quantities of dope to an addict convicted of sharing a small amount with a friend. As a result, she wrote, the law "catches not only the serious drug trafficking that is its proper aim, but conduct that is much less blameworthy." If Parliament wants to maintain mandatory minimums to crack down on big dealers, "it should consider narrowing their reach so that they only catch offenders that merit mandatory minimum sentences." Good advice. In the second case, the court overturned a law that denied extra credit for time served before trial to a man who had been denied bail because of a previous conviction. Instead of getting 1.5 days credit for each day served (which is standard practice), he got only one day, effectively lengthening his sentence. The court ruled that is discriminatory. The Supreme Court has been chipping away at the Conservative justice agenda for a long time. Last spring, before the government was defeated, it declared mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes to be unconstitutional. Like the drug sentence, it found they can crush lesser offenders and serious ones alike. Just as important, they rob judges of the discretion they need to craft sentences for each individual case. The Harper government persisted in pushing "tough on crime" even as actual crime plummeted to record low levels. The top court is sending a welcome message to both the public and the Liberal government that such an approach is both unjust and inefficient. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom