Author Archives: Amy Matychuk

About Amy Matychuk

Amy Matychuk (JD'18, UCalgary Law) is a sole practitioner at Prison & Police Law, where she advocates for the rights of those who have experienced unfair treatment by the prison or police systems in Alberta. More information about her practice is available at prisonpolicelaw.ca.

Canada v Chhina: Supreme Court Makes Habeas Corpus Available to Immigration Detainees

By: Amy Matychuk

PDF Version: Canada v Chhina: Supreme Court Makes Habeas Corpus Available to Immigration Detainees

Case Commented On: Canada (Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness) v Chhina, 2019 SCC 29

On May 10, 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada released its judgment in Canada v Chhina (Chhina SCC). It held that habeas corpus is available to immigration detainees where the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, SC 2001, c 27 (IRPA) does not provide a complete, comprehensive and expert statutory scheme equally as broad and advantageous as habeas corpus. Justice Andromache Karakatsanis, for the 6-1 majority, found that the IRPA’s procedures for reviewing the legality of immigration detention are not broad enough to preclude detainees from seeking habeas corpus as an alternative remedy. Justice Rosalie Abella, dissenting, would have held that the IRPA should be interpreted in such a way as to guarantee the fullest possible range of scrutiny for the legality of immigration detention. Continue reading →

Turning a Blind Eye? The Scope of the Charter Right to a Representative Jury

By: Amy Matychuk

PDF Version: Turning a Blind Eye? The Scope of the Charter Right to a Representative Jury

Case Commented On: R v Newborn, 2019 ABCA 123 (CanLII)

In R v Newborn, Justices Frans Slatter, Ritu Khullar, and Barbara Lea Veldhuis of the Alberta Court of Appeal (ABCA) dismissed an argument from the appellant (the accused) that “the array from which his jury was selected was constitutionally flawed because it disproportionately excluded [A]boriginal citizens” (Newborn ABCA, at para 1). It also dismissed his argument that inadmissible expert evidence was allowed at the trial. However, this post will focus on the right to a representative jury as defined in the Supreme Court’s decision in R v Kokopenace, 2015 SCC 28 (CanLII), R v Newborn’s application of Kokopenace, and the appropriate scope of the state’s obligations under Charter s 11. Continue reading →

Eighteen Years of Inmate Litigation Culminates with Some Success in the SCC’s Ewert v Canada

By: Amy Matychuk

PDF Version: Eighteen Years of Inmate Litigation Culminates with Some Success in the SCC’s Ewert v Canada

Case Commented On: Ewert v Canada, 2018 SCC 30 (CanLII)

On June 13, 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) issued its decision in Ewert v Canada (Ewert SCC), in which the majority held that the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) breached its statutory duty to Jeffrey G Ewert, a Métis inmate, when it used five actuarial risk assessment tests that were not proven to be accurate when applied to Indigenous offenders. CSC uses these tests to assess inmates’ risk of recidivism, and the test results can impact liberty-related processes such as security classification, parole hearings, and eligibility for escorted temporary absences (ETAs). Mr. Ewert had rather slim positive evidence for the presence of cultural bias in the tests; his argument was, instead, that his and others’ legitimate concerns about the possibility of bias should require CSC to produce research confirming the tests’ validity. He was initially successful at the Federal Court in 2015, overturned at the Federal Court of Appeal in 2016, and ultimately prevailed at the SCC. His lengthy litigation efforts resulted in a total of five written decisions and spanned eighteen years. In this post, I will review the long history of Mr. Ewert’s efforts, the progression of his case through the courts, and the significance of the remedy he received.

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Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Introduces the Accelerated Habeas Corpus Review Procedure

By: Amy Matychuk

PDF Version: Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Introduces the Accelerated Habeas Corpus Review Procedure

Case Commented On: Latham v Her Majesty the Queen, 2018 ABQB 69 (CanLII)

In an attempt to address the proliferation of habeas corpus applications from inmates in Alberta institutions, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench (Edmonton) has introduced a new procedure to prevent vexatious habeas corpus applications from wasting court resources. Habeas corpus is a constitutional remedy for an unlawful loss of liberty (see s 10(c) of the Charter, which provides for the right “to have the validity of … detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful.”) Since 2014, Alberta inmates have attempted to use habeas corpus to air an increasing number of grievances about their conditions of detention. Because the only remedy available on a habeas corpus application is release from detention, it applies narrowly to deprivations of liberty within an institution (such as transfers from lower to higher security) and is useless as a means of addressing complaints about prison conditions. Nevertheless, Alberta inmates appear either to have misunderstood this limitation or to have ignored it, and the Court of Queen’s Bench has introduced a procedure designed to keep the most senseless of these applications from reaching the hearing stage and thus wasting judicial time.

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