An Inuit politician from Labrador says he feels the justice system is going too easy on some violent offenders because they’re aboriginal.
Liberal critic Randy Edmunds wrote a letter to the top judge in Newfoundland and Labrador about the issue.
In the letter he writes that aboriginal people are subject to a different interpretation of guidelines when sentencing is handed down.
He adds Section 718 of the Criminal Code allows judges to have discretion with respect to aboriginal status and a certain level of flexibility.
Edmunds feels this is inadvertently creating a dangerous situation for many aboriginal victims of crime, who often find themselves living beside the offender when they get out:
“Certainly the aboriginal justice component allows for judges to give much more discretion on sentencing. But I think in hind-sight the victims have been forgotten about. I know situations where a rape-victim is living right next door to the person who raped them.”
“They’re very uncomfortable and you know with more and more families being impacted now that level of concern is rising.”
Edmunds adds breaches of an undertaking and failure to comply charges are sometimes even dismissed when new charges are laid on that same offender.
He says it’s often due to the amount of time that’s elapsed between court dates or postponement of cases.
Edmunds says he isn’t calling for the Gladue factor to be overturned.
That factor essentially calls on judges to take into account the social and historical backgrounds of aboriginal offenders in an effort to reduce the vast over-population of aboriginal people in prison.
At the same time he says something needs to be done to protect aboriginal victims of violent crime.