A first in the judicial history of Quebec. At the end of July, at the Longueuil courthouse, a judge sentenced Franck P. to 24 months in prison in a drug case, reports the daily The press. To determine the duration of the sentence, she accepted the suggestion of the defense to take into account the evaluation “impact of ethnic or cultural origin” (EIOEC). An analysis that looks at the criminal’s personal journey, through the magnifying glass of the “systemic barriers” with which he would have been confronted.
In detail, an EIOEC is an expert report used to determine the sentence of a “racialized” person, used in particular for blacks. This procedure is initiated when an accused is found guilty, but before the sentence is determined. The report makes an exhaustive examination of the accused’s journey with an insistence on “clean realities” to racialized people, the “systemic discrimination” they undergo and to the specific challenges to which they are exposed, as the largest proportion of single -parent families.
The “intergenerational trauma of slavery” taken into account
In the case of Franck P., the report recalled that the drug trafficker grew up without his father in Côte-des-Neiges, in Montreal, a “Disadvantaged district characterized by poverty and crime” and where “There was racial profiling”. The authors of the report also asked that be considered “The possibility of post-traumatic syndrome” associated with “Intergenerational trauma of slavery” In Nova Scotia, where his mother comes from. The report also notes precise moments of “racial discrimination” suffered by the accused. Like when he was wrongly detained in a migrant center because he was believed to be Jamaican, despite his Canadian citizenship.
“Creating two classes of citizens according to their origin is worrying”
In her decision, the judge wrote that after reading the Eioec, the “Court has decided to reduce the sentence which should be 35 months to a 24 -month sentence”as defense wanted. A sentence, moreover, already purged in preventive detention.
She added three -year probation. If such a procedure has existed since 2014 in Canada, it had never been started in Quebec. She could make a case law.
The government of Quebec Prime Minister François Legault has strongly criticized this decision. “Although we fully resume judicial independence, this judgment raises fundamental questions about the equality of citizens before justice. Creating two classes of citizens according to their origin is worrying ”wrote the Minister of the Economy, Christopher Skeete, on X. Before adding: “The idea that ethnic origin can influence the severity of a sentence calls into question the fundamental principle of equality before the law”.
