| M was a female inmate serving a life sentence with a parole ineligibility date of 25 years. M sought certiorari to quash a decision of the Commissioner denying her application for transfer to minimum security, and also sought mandamus compelling a transfer to minimum security. M had started her sentence in 1980 and since 1988 had been classified as minimum security. M was serving her sentence at the Kingston Prison for Women that purportedly was a multi level federal penal institution with maximum, medium and minimum security levels. The minimum-security facility is a separate building across the road from the prison. As of April 1991, there were 108 prisoners at the Kingston Prison for Women and 20 of them were classified as minimum security (including the applicant) and 11 of them were housed at the facility across the street. The selection criteria for transfer to the minimum facility was set down in policy as follows: The inmate was to be 1) normally within one year of mandatory supervision or parole eligibility, with good opportunity for conditional release; 2) amenable to programming; and 3) classified as not a present and undue risk to the community. The warden stated that inmates serving life sentences are considered for transfer to the minimum facility about two years prior to eligibility and that because of the limited number of beds, allowing the transfer of those more than two years away from parole eligibility would tie up beds, reducing the availability of space for inmates serving shorter sentences. M was some ten years away from parole eligibility and the warden was concerned that if her eligibility for judicial review at 15 years was used as a guideline and she was then not successful in her application for judicial review, that then she would occupy a bed at the minimum facility for many years, preventing short-term inmates from being transferred. M was advised of the warden's decision not to grant the transfer in the circumstances, and said that her case would be reconsidered the following year. M did not appeal. An application was submitted the following year but had not been decided upon by the time the court heard the application. |
|
In denying the application, Dubé J. held that the court could not find that there had been an excess of jurisdiction in denying M's transfer to another facility within the same minimum security level or that her rights under the Charter or common law had been violated. M had been subjected to the same criteria as other inmates that were reasonable in the circumstances. The court expressed the view that justice would not be served by ordering that the applicant be moved ahead of others to a facility with limited space. Dubé J. felt that the obvious solution was for the government to provide, with all due diligence, adequate facilities for women prisoners in Canada. The court expressed the view that the underlying problem was clearly the shortage of beds at the minimum facility and that until better, larger and more modern facilities were provided for women inmates, the warden had to cope with the present situation and establish criteria so as to determine who could be transferred there. The CD provisions with respect to transfer did not apply because the prisoner was already classified as minimum and was seeking transfer to another facility within the same institution at the same level of security and not to another level.
|
TOP