Chief Justice McLachlin on mental illness and the law

Skirting carefully around a contentious federal government policy, she says that the legal regime used to decide the fate of violent, mentally ill offenders has worked smoothly and “served us well.”




Under reforms proposed by the federal government, it would become substantially more difficult for those designated as high-risk offenders to be reviewed and potentially released.



While the Chief Justice expresses reluctance to inject herself into a raging debate about a proposal to make the law more strict, she says she is unaware of any particular deficiencies in the current law. “Actually, my understanding is that it has worked quite well. Obviously, there are amendments being put forward and I’m not going to go into those, but it has served us well and it is looked at by other countries as a good model.”





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