{"id":14383,"date":"2016-03-16T14:24:12","date_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalpardon.org\/?p=14383"},"modified":"2016-03-16T14:24:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T14:24:12","slug":"bringing-the-administration-of-justice-into-disrepute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.nationalpardon.org\/?p=14383","title":{"rendered":"Pardons Canada &#8211; Bringing the administration of justice into disrepute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the more problematic changes to the pardon system brought about by Stephen Harper\u2019s omnibus crime bill was granting the Parole Board the power to refuse a pardon for any reason whatsoever. Specifically \u2013 or vaguely depending on how you look at it \u2013 the Board can refuse to order a record suspension if it would bring the administration of justice into disrepute. It doesn\u2019t take a lawyer to recognize that the language is intentionally vague and that this aspect of the law requires clarification.<\/p>\n<p>But up until recently the Board was operating as though it really could refuse a pardon just because the person reviewing the application felt like it. Fortunately a recent superior court decision by <a href=\"http:\/\/cas-cdc-www02.cas-satj.gc.ca\/portal\/page\/portal\/fc_cf_en\/Bio\/Gleeson\">Federal Court Justice Patrick Gleeson<\/a> ruled a lack of detail in one of the Parole Board\u2019s refusals meant that it \u201clacks transparency and intelligibility and is unreasonable.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0This is excellent news.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve complained about this problem before. See links below for more detail. But the bottom line has always been the same. We believe that if someone meets the criteria for a pardon as set out in the criminal code, then they should be given the chance.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately the Parole Board has not agreed with this position and for past four years it has operated as though it had carte blanche to do whatever it pleased. But now, with this judgement and with the Liberal government planning to amend the pardon program it looks like we have a chance at getting the pardon program, and the Parole Board of Canada, back on the right path to success.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ipolitics.ca\/2014\/04\/04\/how-the-parole-system-treats-the-presumption-of-innocence\/\">How the Parole Board Treats the Presumption of Innocence<\/a>\u00a0by Michael Ashby, Director of the National Pardon Centre:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the more problematic changes to the pardon system brought about by Stephen Harper\u2019s omnibus crime bill was granting the Parole Board the power to refuse a pardon for any reason whatsoever. Specifically \u2013 or vaguely depending on how you look at it \u2013 the Board can refuse to order a record suspension if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-14383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pardon","category-record-suspension","tag-parole-board-of-canada"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bringing justice into disrepute | National Pardon Centre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A recent decision by a Federal Court Judge means that the Parole Board of Canada will have to provide valid reason to refuse a pardon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bringing justice into disrepute | National Pardon Centre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A recent decision by a Federal Court Judge means that the Parole Board of Canada will have to provide valid reason to refuse a pardon.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/staging.nationalpardon.org\/?p=14383\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"staging.nationalpardon.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-16T14:24:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"National Pardon\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"National Pardon\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/staging.nationalpardon.org\\\/?p=14383#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/staging.nationalpardon.org\\\/?p=14383\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"National Pardon\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/staging.nationalpardon.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/7d8875ab66fc730533e59e05d71b75ba\"},\"headline\":\"Pardons Canada &#8211; 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