The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that judges must “meaningfully consider” traditional indigenous community approaches to justice when sentencing indigenous offenders and said that not doing so can constitute a legal error.
The Supreme Court judges were split on the decision, with four dissenting and five in the majority.
The ruling came in the context of an appeal in the case of Harry Arthur Cope, an indigenous man convicted for severely assaulting his indigenous girlfriend in 2021, who had his five-year prison sentence reduced to three years by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 2024.
Sentencing Circles
The Supreme Court upheld the reduced sentence in a 5–4 decision on Oct. 9, holding that the original sentencing judge hadn’t properly taken into account the recommendations by an indigenous sentencing circle or the mental illness of the man in issuing the sentence….