Brian Eyolfson

The Crown appealed the conditional sentences imposed on two black single mothers who pleaded guilty to importing cocaine.

The trial judge had introduced his own research on systemic racial and gender bias, concluding these factors mitigated their culpability and justified conditional sentences.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial judge overstepped his role by acting as advocate, witness, and judge, and erred in principle by imposing conditional sentences for a serious offence like importing cocaine.

Although the appropriate sentences would have been custodial terms of 20 months and two years less a day, the Court dismissed the appeal because the respondents had already served 17 months of their conditional sentences, and incarcerating them now would cause undue hardship.

The appellant appealed a decision regarding her entitlement to Indian status, alleging the Registrar unconstitutionally presumed her unknown paternal grandfather was not an Indian.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Registrar simply applied the Indian Act and did not employ the alleged presumption.

The Court noted the appellant could still challenge the constitutionality of the Indian Act and the Registrar's decision in separate proceedings.

The applicant sought judicial review of a decision by the Ontario Board of Inquiry, which held that it had jurisdiction to continue hearing a human rights complaint after the Ontario Human Rights Commission withdrew its carriage of the proceeding.

The Divisional Court granted the application, finding that under the Human Rights Code, a Board of Inquiry may not proceed in the absence of the Commission.

The Court held that the Commission cannot delegate carriage of the complaint to the complainant, and that the public interest representation of the Commission is required for the hearing to proceed.