The Liberal government plans to launch consultations this October on the criminal justice system’s response to HIV non-disclosure.
Justice Minister David Lametti made the commitment when he met with stakeholders this week ahead of the International AIDS Conference in Montreal at the weekend.
The consultations will seek input on how to modernize the criminal justice system’s response to non-disclosure of HIV status in light of growing scientific evidence relating to the risk of sexual transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS .
As the law is currently written, people who fail to disclose their HIV status before having sex can be prosecuted for aggravated sexual assault, the most serious type of sexual offense in the Penal Code, even in cases where there is little or no chance of transmission. , without intent to transmit or actual transmission.
The way the law is enforced is “extremely punitive and excessive,” said India Annamanthadoo, a policy analyst at the HIV Legal Network, noting that advocates are aware of more than 200 cases prosecuted since 1989.
Annamanthadoo said in an interview that the consultation is a good first step by the federal government, but it is not enough.
“We must act quickly and urgently,” he said. “So what we hope is that this consultation will not be something that drags on, but will lead to swift legislative reform.”
The Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization, of which the HIV Legal Network is a part, said in a statement Wednesday that the government needs to recognize that “we are not starting from scratch.”
Over the past five years, the coalition has conducted two national consultations with the HIV community and identified consensus recommendations for the government to follow.
After the first consultation resulted in a consensus statement in 2017, Justice Canada publicly referred to the “overcriminalization of HIV,” and two years later the House of Commons justice committee concluded that the application of criminal law in these cases had to be reduced.
But successive Liberal justice ministers have not made any specific commitments.
The coalition’s specific legislative recommendations, based on its second consultation, will be outlined in a policy statement it plans to release on Friday as the international AIDS conference begins.
Canada has the dubious reputation of hosting that conference while remaining “a world leader in the criminalization of HIV,” as Annamanthadoo put it, with prosecutions disproportionately affecting Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ Canadians.
The government did not set a timetable for the consultations beyond saying they would start in October, adding that more information would be available “in the coming weeks”.
The Canadian press
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