You must be notified in writing of your right to legal counsel immediately and, even in an emergency situation with “compelling circumstances,” you must still be notified of your right to legal counsel within 24 hours.¹⁵⁰ It can be very important that you exercise this right because, in some cases, your lawyer may be able to arrange for you to go before a judge¹⁵¹ and request a legal remedy. The Supreme Court of Canada’s (SCC) decision in Idziak provides a very useful tool with which to argue for being granted habeas corpus in advance of an allegedly illegal detention/transfer.¹⁵² First, As well, the Ontario Court of Appeal has recently ruled that prisoners currently held at Isabel McNeil House (IMH), the only minimum security penitentiary for women in Canada, have a right to a habeas corpus application and should remain at IMH until the application is heard regarding their transfer to a higher security institution.¹⁵³ Such court decisions may favourably influence the outcomes of new court cases.

What can I do if my rights are violated?
The institutional head must ensure that you are advised in writing of the appropriate grievance procedure related to transfers. It is important that you use this grievance process if you feel the decision is wrong. A court is not likely to grant a remedy to you if you have not exhausted the institution’s internal remedy procedure first.

Also, as with other issues, you should notify the Correctional Investigator at 1.877.885.8848 and inform her of the violation. You can also contact the CAEFS information line at 1.800.637.4606.

Disciplinary Charges

What is the purpose of the disciplinary system?
The CSC considers the disciplinary system to be a means to ensure that prisoners behave in a manner that promotes the good order of the prison and protects the safety of the public. The process is supposed to be one that contributes to prisoners’ rehabilitation and reintegration into the community upon release.¹⁵⁴

In pursuing these goals, discipline must:

• be fair
• use the least restrictive measures possible¹⁵⁵
• be corrective by design
• reinforce the prisoner’s responsibility and accountability
• give due consideration to culturally appropriate restorative approaches to discipline and informal resolution to encourage positive interaction between prisoners and staff
• be timely
• be impartially determined and administered
• take into consideration the prisoner’s mental health
• apply only those sanctions imposed by the person conducting the hearing¹⁵⁶