Mandatory payments for minor offences unconstitutional, top court rules
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down a law that forced people convicted of crimes to pay surcharges that help victims, saying the mandatory fee amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
In a 7-2 decision delivered Friday morning in Ottawa, the Supreme Court found the mandatory victim surcharge puts a crushing financial burden on poor people and places them under constant threat of being arrested and jailed if they do not pay.
“Judges have been forced to impose a one-size-fits all punishment which does not take into account the individual’s ability to pay,” Justice Sheilah Martin writes in the majority’s decision.
For disadvantaged offenders, a high proportion of whom suffer from addiction and mental-health problems, the surcharge levied on top of a sentence results in a “grossly disproportionate public shaming,” she added. “It is what most Canadians would call an abhorrent and intolerable punishment.”