Canada’s top court has struck down parts of the national sex offender registry.
In a ruling Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada said mandatory registration of all sex offenders with more than one conviction goes too far and that keeping offenders on the registry for the rest of their lives violates the Constitution.
“While mandatory registration has the attraction of simplicity and ease, the convenience of requiring every sex offender to register does not make it constitutional,” wrote the court in a majority decision.
The ruling concerns the conviction of Eugene Ndhlovu, who pleaded guilty in 2015 to the sex assaults of two women in 2011.
Under 2011 amendments made to the sex offender registry, Ndhlovu’s name would have been permanently added to the list with no discretion for either the judge or the Crown.
But the trial judge found the Crown had introduced almost no evidence to show that the mandatory listing helped police sexual assault investigations. Justice Andrea Moen found the benefits to society of mandatory lifetime listing didn’t justify the impacts on Ndhlovu, whom Crown experts considered a minimal risk to reoffend.
Moen’s ruling was overturned by the Alberta Court of Appeal, but upheld by the Supreme Court.
The Friday ruling said the registry is not intended to punish offenders but to aid law enforcement. It said there are currently 27 offences ranging widely in severity that require offenders to be listed.
“(The registry) is nearly 20 years old,” the court wrote. “Despite its long existence, there is little or no concrete evidence of the extent to which it assists police in the prevention and investigation of sex offences.”
Meanwhile, it found the impact of being placed on the registry to be severe.
Offenders must report to police if they change their address, travel or obtain a driver’s licence or a passport. They may be contacted by police at any time. There’s the stigma it brings, as well as some evidence that simply being listed increases the chance of reoffending.
“The impact of a (registry) order on an offender’s liberty can only fairly be described as serious,” the court wrote.
Three justices dissented from the majority on the constitutionality of mandatory listing, although they agreed that lifetime listing could not be justified.
The dissenters wrote that before listing was made mandatory, too many judges were refusing to require offenders to be placed on it, reducing its effectiveness.
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