Solitary Confinement Violates the Charter, Says Lawyer

Josh Paterson of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association during a news conference in Vancouver on Jan. 19, 2015. Paterson announced that the BCCLA and the John Howard Society had filed a lawsuit against the Attorney General of Canada regarding the use of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons. The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward

VANCOUVER—Solitary confinement is a cruel and inhumane punishment with “truly horrific” consequences including severe psychological harm and suicide, a lawyer says in arguing the law allowing the practice in Canada must be struck down.

Joe Arvay, representing the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada, delivered closing arguments in B.C. Supreme Court on Aug. 28 in a legal challenge of the use of indefinite isolation in prisons.

The constitutional lawyer argued that solitary confinement violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the right to life, liberty, and security of the person.

He named several prisoners who have killed themselves, among them 19-year-old Ashley Smith, who hanged herself in 2007. A correctional investigator found reason to believe Smith would still be alive if she had been removed from segregation and given appropriate care.

“It’s one thing if the law deprives a person of their liberty—that should be bad enough,” said Arvay. “Then you layer on top of that that it deprives a person of their psychological or physiological integrity. That’s even worse.

“And then you layer on top of that that it killed you. How much worse does it get?”

He said the so-called administrative segregation provisions of the Corrections and Conditional Release Act, which allow inmates to be locked in cells for up to 23 hours a day, are arbitrary, overly broad, and have grossly disproportionate effects on prisoners.

Some prisoners who are in solitary confinement in Canada have been there for hundreds and even thousands of days.