Case information

Constitutional law — Charter of Rights — Fundamental justice — Arbitrary detention — Benefit of lesser punishment — Torts — Standard of care — Legislation providing accelerated parole for non-violent offenders serving first penitentiary sentence in force when offences committed by first applicant — Relevant provisions subsequently repealed — First applicant not offered accelerated parole — Declaration that first applicant entitled to benefit of accelerated parole process — Correctional Service of Canada began implementing decision upon notice of decision — First applicant receiving parole 43 days after declaration — Applicants sought damages for false imprisonment, negligence, other Charter-related infringements, and other wrongs — Whether court of appeal erred in law in failing to find Correctional Service Canada’s failure to provide required documents at first instance to be negligent — Whether court of appeal erred in law in failing to find Parole Board of Canada’s failure to review and identify missing required documents for 20 days to be negligent.<br>

Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Upon receiving notice of a declaration that Ms. Inlakhana and others were entitled to benefit from the accelerated parole provisions in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, S.C. 1992, c. 20, the Correctional Service of Canada started to implement it with the co-operation of the Parole Board of Canada. Ms. Inlakhana received parole 43 days after the declaration was made. In that 43 days, there was an unexplained 20-day delay between the Correctional Service of Canada sending Ms. Inlakhana’s file to the Parole Board and the Parole Board’s request for certain missing documents. Ms. Inlakhana and members of her family then commenced an action seeking damages for false imprisonment, negligence, other Charter-related infringements, and other wrongs. then commenced an action seeking damages for false imprisonment, negligence, other Charter-related infringements, and other wrongs. The claim alleged that Ms. Inlakhana had spent much longer in custody due to the retroactive denial of accelerated parole review, and that there had been a 43-day delay in processing her release from custody on parole after the declaration of unconstitutionality had been made. Ms. Inlakhana and her family sought partial summary judgment in relation to the latter allegation. On that point, the Attorney General also sought summary judgment, arguing that it had not failed to act expeditiously.

The motion judge dismissed the applicants’ request for summary judgment and granted summary judgment to the Attorney General. Ms. Inlakhana and her family appealed. The appeal was allowed only to clarify para. 2 of the motion judge’s order.