TORY MANDATORY MINIMUM TERMS OFFEND JUDGES, GOMERY
SAYS

(CNS) - Retired Quebec judge John Gomery says the Harper government's
plan to create mandatory minimum jail terms for drug crimes is a
"slap in the face" to judges and suggests the Conservatives don't
trust them to craft appropriate sentences for individual cases.

"This legislation basically shows a mistrust of the judiciary to
impose proper sentences when people come before them," says Gomery,
who came to national prominence in 2004 when he chaired an inquiry
into the federal sponsorship scandal.

"Judges view this kind of legislation as a slap in the face."

Most sitting judges are unwilling to publicly state their views on
the long list of Conservative law-and-order reforms now before
Parliament. Calls on the matter to the presidents of the Canadian
Superior Courts Judges Association and the Canadian Association of
Provincial Court Judges have gone unanswered.

But Gomery, who retired from the Quebec Superior Court after wrapping
up the sponsorship inquiry in 2006, says judges are unhappy about
this and other legislation that suggest a failure on their part to
impose proper sentences.

"Judges find that it's an implied criticism when Parliament imposes
mandatory sentences," Gomery says. "It leaves the impression that
judges aren't using their discretion wisely or in accordance with the
wishes of the legislature. And judges are resentful about that."

Aside from murder, which has long carried a mandatory sentence of
life in prison, Canada's first widespread use of mandatory jail terms
came in 1995, when the former Liberal government imposed minimum
prison sentences on a large number of offences committed with a firearm.