Conservative Justice Bills

Let the whining begin. It seems that PMSH is all upset because a bunch of the Conservative government's "justice bills" are hung up on objections from the opposition benches.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in the midst of the fall parliamentary session, finally resorted to the time-honoured tactic of branding his opponents as obstructionist - and threatening to make them pay at the polls.

"We'll keep trying to bring forward some tough-on-crime legislation," Harper declared. "But at some point, if the opposition won't pass it, they'll have to answer to the Canadian people."

Typical of the micromanager, when he can't get his way, Harper resorts to bully tactics.

But, let's consider Harper's "amendments" to the criminal code and their impact a little:

Toews admitted, as the session drew to a close, that he was frustrated with the track record, but like Harper laid the blame on the opposition.

"I can only say that we're pushing forward with our agenda," said the minister. "I'm disappointed that the other parties haven't kept their election promises."

Nine criminal justice bills remain before the House, some of them relatively innocuous measures to fine-tune existing laws.

More significant are bills to raise the age of sexual consent to 16 from the current 14, and to crack down on drug-impaired drivers.

But Toews says his top priority in the new year will be a bill imposing tougher mandatory minimum sentences for gun-related crimes, up to 10 years in the most serious cases.

He also wants action on legislation making it easier to classify people as dangerous offenders after three serious convictions. That could lead to locking them up indefinitely.

Opponents say those bills illustrate what's wrong with the Tory approach - the assumption that stiffer sentences, in themselves, will prevent crime.

I think that two of Toews' bills are illustrative of a much more dangerous problem with Conservative justice policy. Both the "3 Strikes Law" and their proposed amendments to bail rules turn the concept of of "Innocent until proven guilty" upside down by presupposing guilt and insisting that the accused demonstrate that they are "not a risk".

In a free and democratic society, the supposition of innocence in criminal proceedings is vital to keeping the state from using its powers to unreasonably constrain individual liberties. The suspicious thing here is that the Conservatives could easily achieve the desired effect in legislation without playing the 'reverse onus' card.

I suspect that for all of the Conservative government's attempts at obfuscation, the use of "reverse onus" tactics is in violation of Section 11 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially clauses d and e which read:

(d) to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal;
(e) not to be denied reasonable bail without just cause;

They may also be somewhat in violation of clause (c):

(c) not to be compelled to be a witness in proceedings against that person in respect of the offence;

At least as far as the inverted obligation of proof would likely require the accused to testify on their own behalf in many cases.

So besides the amazingly expensive process of putting more people behind bars, the Conservatives have demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the relationship between criminal law and the Constitution. They seem to think that accusation is equivalent to a finding of guilt, and worse that once someone is thought to have committed a crime, that the rights of that person are suspended.