The Supreme Court of Canada has just rendered a decision that will have important consequences across the country. The highest court struck down a controversial Harper-era provision that allowed for extremely long prison sentences and confirmed that Alexandre Bissonnette will be able to apply for parole after 25 years.
Posted at 9:52
Updated at 10:05 a.m.
“By depriving offenders of any possibility of reintegrating into society in advance, the impugned provision undermines the very foundations of Canadian criminal law,” reads the unanimous decision of the nine judges.
This means that the author of the massacre at the Great Mosque of Quebec could be released from prison in 2042, rather than 2057, if the parole board so decides. He will then be 52 years old.
The highest court in the country has therefore confirmed the decision of the Quebec Court of Appeal, which had ruled that the sentence awarded to the killer by the trial judge was unconstitutional. François Huot, of the Superior Court, had first imposed on the murderer a life sentence without the possibility of release for 40 years.
The provision at the heart of this whole affair was introduced in 2011 by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper. Section 745.51 was intended to “end sentence discounts for multiple murders”.
Prior to that year, the maximum sentence in Canada was life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. But now, mass killers could receive prison sentences without theoretical limit, depending on the number of their victims.
This is how several prison sentences of 75 years firm have been imposed in the country. It is this sentence that had, for example, received Justin Bourque for the murder of three RCMP officers in New Brunswick. He would not have been eligible for parole until he was 99.
The Supreme Court finds that section 745.51 violates section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which prohibits “cruel and unusual treatment or punishment”. His decision is retroactive, and will therefore have consequences for several multiple killers who received firm sentences of more than 25 years.
“Although Parliament has the latitude to establish penalties whose severity expresses society’s disapproval of the offense committed, it cannot prescribe a penalty which immediately deprives all offenders subject to a realistic possibility of parole,” Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote in the 97-page decision.
These extremely long sentences “are of a degrading nature” and “contrary to human dignity”, writes Judge Wagner. “They deprive offenders of any possibility of social reintegration, which presupposes, in a final and irreversible way, that they do not possess the capacity to mend their ways and reintegrate into society,” the judgment reads.
The Supreme Court, however, insisted on recalling the “unspeakable horror” of the crimes committed by Bissonnette. “It is important to emphasize that hatred, racism, ignorance and Islamophobia are at the heart of the revolting acts committed by the respondent on that fatal day of January 29, 2017, when he sowed terror and death in the Great Mosque of Quebec. »
Alexandre Bissonnette burst into the Great Mosque of Quebec on January 29, 2017. His semi-automatic weapon jammed. But he used his Glock pistol to fire 48 rounds at worshipers gathered for prayer that evening. He killed six Quebeckers of Muslim faith in addition to seriously injuring five others.
Members of the Muslim community of Quebec will react at 11 a.m., in front of the Grand Mosque.