The Court of Appeal sentenced Sharma to time already served and the Crown appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. "Maximum sentences are a reasonable proxy for the seriousness of an offence and, accordingly, the provisions do not deprive individuals of their liberty." The will of Parliament and the electorateThe Supreme Court said maximum sentences are designed to signal that a particular crime is serious and warrants consistency in sentencing, regardless of the offender. The justices said that conditional sentences are sometimes the only tool that judges can use to apply restorative justice principles and craft fair sentences for Indigenous peoples. The dissenting justices also said assigning maximum sentences to specific crimes does not demonstrate that they are "necessarily serious" but only that they are "potentially serious."

Source: CBC News November 04, 2022 13:37 UTC