This morning CCLA appears before the Supreme Court of Canada in two cases, R v Hills and R v Hilbach, challenging the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentences. These two cases have the potential to fundamentally reshape Canadian sentencing and constitutional law. CCLA will be there to urge the Supreme Court to keep proportionality as the fundamental principal driving sentencing, and maintain strong constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Mandatory minimum sentences – laws that require judges to sentence people to minimum periods of prison time – are ineffective, regressive, punitive, and discriminatory. They make for unfair
