1. Fifteen Year Reviews

    This past year we were involved in two successful judicial reviews pursuant to section 745 of the Criminal Code of Canada. The first review this year was heard in September 2005 and the second was heard in November and into December 2005.

    The first, an Aboriginal woman in the Prairies, was deemed eligible for full parole on her 44th birthday. She has now served 16.5 years and is commencing her conditional release with escorted and unescorted temporary absences. The second woman, who is in Ontario, was granted eligibility for full parole as of her 20th anniversary, and has also commenced her conditional release with escorted temporary absences. Both reviews posed some unique challenges related to issues of victim involvement and other case-specific challenges.

    The legal teams who worked on the cases reinforced the importance of our involvement with respect to the overall understanding of the process and the likelihood of increasing positive outcomes due to our accumulated expertise from being involved in the seven reviews for women.

    We commenced discussions with the next three women who will be eligible for their judicial reviews. The next one to be heard is a woman in Quebec. We also continue to remind the one woman who has thus far refused to apply for a review of her 25 year parole ineligibility that we would also support her application.

  2. Case Interventions

    1. Staying Charges
      Although CAEFS and NWAC were not granted intervener status for the trial, our involvement in collaboration with the Native Women’s Association of Canada has resulted in a new police investigation, so we are still aiming for a withdrawal of charges or at least the staying of proceedings against this Aboriginal woman in Manitoba. Once this is done, we will focus on the development of a discussion paper on the topic, with a view to disseminating the information in order to permit early interventions in other cases.

    2. Habeas Corpus
      On December 23rd, 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in the case of May et al. This is the case we intervened in with the John Howard Society of Canada involving prisoners who challenged lower court decisions denying them access to the remedial avenue of habeas corpus. The Supreme Court held that prisoners must have access to habeas corpus, and that such access is important because “[t]imely judicial oversight …is …necessary to safeguard the human rights and civil liberties of [prisoners], and to ensure that the rule of law applies within penitentiary walls.” We appreciated the overview and analysis that Debra Parkes circulated in relation to the decision.

    3. Racial Discrimination
      Along with the African Canadian Legal Clinic, Aboriginal Legal Services, South Asian Legal Clinic, CAEFS continues as a member of the McKinnon Anti-Racism Advisory Committee established to develop recommendations aimed at attempting to remedy human rights violations on the basis of racism within the provincial correctional system. This Committee, an autonomous group representing diverse Aboriginal and racialized communities and organizations, was established following the human rights tribunal ruling that a racialized man working as a correctional officer in one of the prisons was discriminated against on the basis of race.

    4. Application by CSC of their ‘Management Protocol’
      The management protocol is currently being applied to four women, two of whom are the same young Aboriginal women we discussed last year. Both have now spent the majority of their prison terms isolated in segregation. In addition, two more women were placed on the ‘protocol’ this past year. One of these young women is also Aboriginal. We continue to document the disastrous results of isolating these women and are working with counsel and an Aboriginal psychiatrist to examine options for challenging the entire regime. In addition, we ensured that details regarding the application of the protocol were included in our submissions to the United Nations Human Rights Committee.

  3. Inquests

    At the request of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Saskatoon, I will assist them with their intervention and testify at the inquest into the death of a woman in custody there. In addition, we are working on a resource manual to assist the membership in intervening in such matters in the future.

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