The Court of Appeal allows Inuit to claim even more damages in the context of a class action denouncing the periods of “illegal” temporary detention suffered in Nunavik. A case that highlights the inequalities that persist between justice in the North and that rendered elsewhere in Quebec.
The situation deplored in this class action was as follows: when a person is accused of a crime, the law requires that he remains at large while awaiting trial, with some exceptions. When the Crown demands that the accused remain in prison, the Criminal Code provides that he has the right to have the legality of his detention verified by a judge, by what is commonly called a release hearing — or bond — within three clear days.
Except that this deadline was systematically flouted in Nunavik, where 90% of its inhabitants are Inuit, “due to the indifference and negligence” of the Quebec government, is it denounced in the legal action.
In the absence of a detention center in Nunavik, the release investigations were held in Amos, in Abitibi, more than 1,200 km away as the crow flies, a route with no road or direct flight.
The accused was thus first taken, handcuffed and handcuffed, to Kuujjuaq, then by plane to Montreal. From there, he was taken by bus to the Saint-Jérôme detention center for a stop before continuing on to Amos, undergoing multiple strip searches during these stages, often without being able to make himself understood in his language. .
It is a man who suffered such detention, Michael Carrier, who bears on his shoulders this class action which targets the Attorney General of Quebec, responsible for the departments of Justice, Public Security and the Director of Criminal and Penal Prosecutions ( DPCP).
Arrested on July 5, 2018, he could not have a hearing before a judge before the 13th. The public prosecutor having finally consented to his release, he had to repeat the journey in the opposite direction, only to return home July 15, after an absence of 10 days.
In June 2020, a Superior Court judge gave the green light to the class action. However, he had only authorized those who had been thus deprived of their freedom to claim punitive damages of up to $50,000 during the trial — which has not yet taken place. The Court of Appeal changed the game last week by allowing them to also ask for $10,000 per day of “detention” in excess of the 3-day period.
This will therefore allow for an even broader debate, which also risks being more costly for the Government of Quebec.
He must answer for this “systematic violation” of the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of Nunavik, is it indicated in the legal action which invokes in particular contraventions of the right to equality, freedom and the right to be tried in a reasonable delay.
The Justice Department would not comment on the case, “out of respect for the ongoing legal process,” he wrote.
Engine of change
Mand Alexandre Brosseau-Wery, one of those representing Mr. Carrier in this class action, describes the judgment of the Court of Appeal as a “great victory”.
But behind the monetary claim, there is also “the hope of changing the system, of ensuring that such a situation does not arise again and that the inhabitants of Nunavik are no longer left behind, as is too often the case”, explained in interview the lawyer of the firm Kugler Kandestin.
He does not know how many citizens will benefit from this action, if it is successful, but they could be a few hundred to a few thousand.
Class action, “it’s a driver of change and access to justice,” added another lawyer for Mr. Carrier, namely Mr.and Louis-Nicholas Coupal, from Coupal Chauvelot.
He points out that changes were made in 2019 and that defendants can now have their hearing for release by videoconference, without having to go to Amos.
The situation denounced in the class action was also the subject of a specific recommendation in the Viens report, produced at the end of the commission which looked into relations between Aboriginal peoples and certain public services. In particular, it recommended investments in “the development of appropriate places for the exercise of justice” in the Aboriginal villages where the itinerant court sits and to implement the use of videoconferencing as quickly as possible during investigations into released for detainees in remote regions, particularly in Nunavik.
Inequalities denounced
For meand Coupal, this class action is just one example among others that illustrates how access to justice is much more difficult in Nunavik than elsewhere in Quebec.
For example, he explains, prison sentences that are served intermittently (ie only on weekends rather than in one block) do not exist in Nunavik.
“It’s the only place in Quebec where it’s not possible,” explains the lawyer, who points out that this way of proceeding helps offenders to keep their jobs and maintain their family ties.
The alcohol ignition interlock program, which allows you to even be able to drive a vehicle after a conviction for drunk driving — and to keep a job that requires driving — is also not available in Nunavik, he says, in order to illustrate the problems of access to justice that are the lot of the inhabitants of the North.
In 2016, while he was in opposition, the now Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, compared prisons in the South with those in northern Quebec: Club Med and the “gulag “. “It’s two weights, two measures. We attribute a second-class status to the citizens of Nunavik,” he lamented during a press briefing.
Last fall, Mr. Jolin-Barrette also commissioned an expert to produce a report on the “difficulties” of access to justice for the Inuit population of this region in order to provide concrete solutions. . Its report is expected in March.