Nunavut Legal Aid to intervene at Supreme Court of Canada for first time

  • 📰 CTVNews
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 42 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 20%
  • Publisher: 99%

Law Law Headlines News

Law Law Latest News,Law Law Headlines

Nunavut Legal Aid is to have a say at the Supreme Court of Canada for the first time in a case that could affect the way Inuit are sentenced.

About 40,000 people, mostly Inuit, live in the territory, which has the highest incarceration rate in the country.The case involves a young Indigenous woman named Cheyenne Sharma and the constitutionality of a law that barred a judge from allowing her to avoid jail by serving a conditional sentence.Sharma pleaded guilty in 2016 to smuggling two kilograms of cocaine into Canada from South America.

Eva Tache-Green, a Nunavut Legal Aid lawyer leading the intervention, argues that limiting conditional sentences only hurts Inuit offenders across Nunavut. "Elders consider modern imprisonment to be akin to banishment, which was among the harshest sanctions possible under Inuit law," she wrote in a submission to the court.

Redfern said Nunavut, the youngest of Canada's three territories, still has a chance to shape how justice is carried out. "These are real people. These are real lives. Often they are complicated and complex sets of circumstances that have led to an incident." She also argues the territory’s high prison rate shows how legislation that restricts conditional sentences can be harmful and has resulted in more Nunavummiut being sent to jail for longer periods of time.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

Fucksakes enough with the special treatment of these idiots 2kgs of cocaine this country is a joke with its 3 classes of citizens: English, French and lazy money sucking natives

Our legal system lacks a rule of law and was designed to protect the rich/powerful.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 1. in LAW

Law Law Latest News, Law Law Headlines