Case information

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The Appellants are inmates serving sentences for murder or manslaughter in federal institutions in British Columbia. They each applied for relief in the nature of habeas corpus with certiorari in aid directing the responsible Corrections officials to transfer them from the medium-security institutions where they resided to the minimum-security institutions from which they were involuntarily transferred. In each case, the transfer back to the medium-security institution resulted from a review of the security classifications of offenders serving a life sentence in minimum-security institutions who had not completed a violent offender program. Four of the Appellants were advised that their transfer was based on a computerized reclassification scale which yielded a medium-security rating consistent with a rationale provided by an Offender Security Classification. The Appellant May was told that his security rating had been adjusted because the security classification tool could not rate him as minimum security because he had not completed violent offender programming.

The Appellants argued that a change in general policy, embodied in a direction to review the security classification of offenders serving a life sentence at Ferndale using certain classification tools, was the sole factor prompting their transfers. They said that the transfers were arbitrary, made without any “fresh” misconduct on their parts, and made without considering the merits of each case. They also claimed that their right to procedural fairness was breached by the failure to disclose the scoring matrix for one of the classification tools, leaving them unable to challenge the usefulness of that tool in the decision-making process. The Respondents said that no scoring matrix was available.

The chambers judge found that he had jurisdiction to consider an application for habeas corpus with certiorari in aid asking whether the Corrections officers had acted within their jurisdiction, but that he did not have jurisdiction to reconsider the merits of the case. He found that the officers had jurisdiction and had acted within it. The Court of Appeal held that the chambers judge had not erred in declining habeas corpus, but that he should have declined jurisdiction. The Appellants’ appeal was dismissed.