Case information

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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.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms – Arbitrary detention – Principles of fundamental justice – Prerogative writs – Habeas corpus – Prisons – Disclosure required during reclassification and transfer of inmates – Whether an application for release by way of habeas corpus is substantively the same in scope as a judicial review of the decision resulting in the deprivation of liberty – Whether the same grounds as in judicial review and the same standard of review analysis apply in the context of an application for habeas corpus – Where an inmate is the subject of a transfer, whether procedural fairness requires disclosure of sufficient information to meaningfully respond or all of the information considered by the warden or, if information is withheld, that the warden justify the withholding.

The respondent was an inmate, classified as a medium security risk, and serving his sentence at Mission Institute, a medium security facility. On September 23, 2009, another inmate at Mission Institute was stabbed. Mission’s security intelligence department investigated. Unidentified sources and two anonymous tips alleged that the respondent and one other inmate were hired by a third inmate to carry out the stabbing and payment for the stabbing was 3 grams of heroin. The findings were reported to the Warden of Mission Institute in a Security Intelligence Report. The warden ordered the respondent’s involuntary, emergency transfer to Kent Institute, a maximum security facility. The respondent received a Notice of Emergency Involuntary Transfer Recommendation and an Assessment for Decision and was given an opportunity to make representations. He made submissions and in part objected to the adequacy of disclosure of the information relied upon by the warden. The warden then provided notice of a final decision reclassifying him as a maximum security risk and confirming his transfer to Kent.