97. (1) The Service shall ensure that each inmate is given, on arrest, an opportunity to retain and instruct legal counsel without delay and that every inmate is informed of their right thereto.

    (2) The Service shall ensure that every inmate is given a reasonable opportunity to retain and instruct legal counsel without delay and that every inmate is informed of the inmate's right to legal counsel where the inmate

is place in administrative segregation; or

is the subject of a proposed involuntary transfer pursuant to section 12 or has been the subject of an emergency transfer pursuant to section 13.

    (3) The Service shall ensure that every inmate has reasonable access to

legal counsel and legal reading materials;

non-legal materials, including

Commissioner's Directives, and

regional instructions and institutional standing orders, except those relating to security matters; and

a commissioner for taking oaths and affidavits.

Shortreed v. Canada (Attorney General) - (1997), 131 F.T.R. 113, [1997] F.C.J. No.954 (F.C.T.D.) [affirmed F.C.A. (1999) 247 N.R. 297, [1999] F.C.J. No.1460], 1999 CanLII 8764 (F.C.A.)

- This application for judicial review challenged decisions that resulted in the voiding of an Inmate Committee purchase order for the purchase of various legal texts and legislation. The purchases were to be drawn from the Inmate Welfare Fund. The institution also refused to accept an issue of Outlook Magazine, as it was a compilation of photocopied articles from various legal texts, journals and newspapers already available to the inmates through the prison library. Paragraph 97(3)(a) of the Regulations requires that the CSC shall ensure that every inmate has reasonable access to legal reading materials. So, although the decision is a discretionary one, there must be sufficient justification for it, so that it can be characterized as "reasonable." In this case, the court concluded that the CSC's decision was reasonable. With respect to the purchase of legal texts, given the inmates' access to books already available, and the evidence of the CSC's concern about depletion of the fund, the court held that, on balance, the applicants had not made their case. As to the proposed issue of Outlook Magazine, the inmates had failed to show that the decisions were unreasonable in any way. The court did not believe that the applicants were denied access to general legal knowledge through the rejection of the proposed issue of the magazine.

Corresponding Act: Sections 68-75 General - Living Conditions