Charter Rights in Prison: A Legal Analysis and Prediction of BC and Ontario’s Segregation Cases

Abstract

Cases regarding prisoners’ rights have been difficult for prisoners and prisoner advocates to win as courts tend to be deferential to prison officials. Two cases from Ontario and British Columbia have made their way up to the Supreme Court of Canada regarding the use of administrative segregation in prisons. This paper seeks to make a prediction as to the outcome of these upcoming cases by answering how courts determine which Charter rights can be justifiably violated once one is imprisoned. Based on an analysis of decisions for previous Supreme Court prisoners’ rights cases, the level of emphasis on empirical evidence is found to be the strongest contributing factor in courts determining which rights can be justifiably violated once imprisoned. Based on these findings, I predict the outcome of the upcoming Supreme Court segregation case to be a success for the claimants. These findings highlight the importance of prisoners’ accessibility to adequate resources especially when compared to the expansive resources available to the government to gather impactful empirical evidence.