Liberals lose bid to halt trial over solitary confinement in prisons

The federal government has lost its last-minute bidto quash a landmark trial challengingCanada's solitary confinement prison practices.

Today, a British Columbia Supreme Court judge rejected the Attorney General of Canada's application to halt thecase.

The Charter challenge, launchedby the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and the John Howard Society of Canada in January 2015, will now go ahead as scheduled on July 4.

The lawsuit sayscurrent policies cause suffering and death, deprivefundamental protections, and discriminate against mentally ill and Indigenous inmates, all practices that amount to "cruel and unusual punishment."

BCCLAlawyerCailyDiPuma welcomed today'scourtruling.

"The problem with the practices of indefinite long-term solitary confinement in Canada have been apparent for many decades and today the court recognized that the government can't derail a clearly deficient bill in the eleventh hour," shetold CBC News.

• Government tries to halt legal challenge to segregation practice
• Liberals set 15-day cap for segregation

The government had filed a last-minute application to the Supreme Court of British Columbia arguingthatgoing ahead with the case would be a waste of court resources, since concerns about prolonged segregation are being addressed in new government legislation.

It was filed in Vancouver last Tuesday, just one day after the government tabled a bill setting a 15-daylimit for segregation, and just two weeks before the landmark case was set to begin.

The trial is expected to last about nine weeks.

Under the new billC-56, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) would have an 18-month transition period, during which time the cap will be set at 21 days.

• Atlantic Canada has highest rate of solitary
• Watchdog sees decline in segregation

New directives that came alongside the bill say inmates with serious mental disorders who are engaging in self-injury or are at risk of suicide, are pregnant, have mobility issues or are in palliative care should not be placed in segregation unless "exceptional circumstances are identified."

No certaintybill will pass

The BCCLA and John Howard argued against the government's application, sayingthat there are biggaps in the billand that there's no certainty itwill even pass.

Calls for tighter restrictions over solitary confinement grew louder after thehigh-profile inquest into the death of teen prisoner Ashley Smith.

Smith died in a segregated prison cell at the Grand Valley Institution for Women inKitchener, Ont., in 2007.

A coroner's jury ruled that her self-inflicted choking death was a homicide and made 104 recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.

DiPumasaid a decade later, there have been no policy changes that would prevent a similar death behind bars.

• Legal limits on segregation urged
• Experts call for stricter rules on solitary confinement