A civil rights and constitutional law group is celebrating after a Federal Court ruled against the federal government’s attempt to strike a constitutional challenge to Correctional Services Canada’s policy allowing trans-identifying males into women’s prisons.
Heather Mason, a co-founder of Canadian Women’s Sex-Based Rights (caWsbar), said the group launched the challenge on the grounds that allowing men in women’s prisons breaches the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and that the case is necessary to protect vulnerable women in federal correctional institutions.
The Federal Court also granted CAWSBAR public-interest standing in a separate decision, allowing it to proceed with the case on behalf of federally incarcerated women in Canada.
