YCJA Unconstitutional

First post in some time. Unfortunately, this one begins on a sad note but also deals with the theme of censorship that I frequently discussed in 2007. Toronto's first homicide of the year saw a young, 14-year old girl stabbed and left for death in a snow bank. The accused killers are a 15-year old girl and her 17-year old boyfriend. At this point, these two have not been tried and details about the murder are yet to emerge in court. However, my point here is that the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2001 is failing victims and Canadians as a whole. Furthermore, I believe it to be unconstitutional.

In Canada, youth under 18 are protected from adult sentencing and having their identities released to the public. The goal of the YCJA was to protect young people who make mistakes such as stealing a car or taking drugs. I think the majority of Canadians agree that young people make mistakes and shouldn't have their names forever dragged through the dirt for trivial issues. The problem comes when the same treatment is applied to youths who commit violent crimes such as armed robbery, assault, attempted murder, and murder. Such crimes are not mistakes and you can't honestly tell me these kids didn't know what they were doing. Youths convicted of these crimes will only go to jail for a maximum of five years in a youth facility. Most will not see the inside of a prison. Furthermore, they are entitled to a full university education at these facilities worth up to $100,000, courtesy of the tax payer. What makes the latter infuriating is the huge number of law abiding youths struggling to pay tuition and student loans. The newspapers have dubbed this the "hug-a-thug" attitude. It seems in general that our justice system, judges in particular, are not taking violent crime seriously.

The last straw for this unjust law is the fact that the YCJA is unconstitutional. It violates Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The section that guarantees "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Shielding youth who commit violent acts such as cold blooded murder is not a reasonable limit on Section 2b. The public has the inalienable right to know who these people are in order to protect themselves, especially from violent youths who have a high risk of re-offending. Any justice who tells you otherwise should be immediately removed from the bench. Once again, judges are the weakest link. This is blatant censorship by the justice system. A system that has a long track record of not fully disclosing its practices. The goal here is not to expose youths who have made the mistakes, those who have summary convictions. Those who knowingly commit indictable, violent crimes are a whole other story.
While on this topic, I'd like to discuss the failure of the media as well. If they know the names of these youth, it is their duty as responsible journalists to report them no matter what punishment the government has for it. The fact that the media is complying with this unconstitutional law only shows how apathetic, partisan, and weak journalism has become in this country.

I doubt any of this will change soon. The justice system is filled with hardcore liberals who use their position on the bench as their own political soapbox. Anybody who thinks judges in Canada are impartial is only fooling themselves. Once again I reaffirm my past proposal for a non-political, civilian body of inquiry that reviews questionable decisions of judges. Furthermore, the same body should be in charge of appointing and confirming judges in order to avoid patronage and politics from entering the courtroom. This is how things are done with the Supreme Court in the United States.
Lastly the YCJA needs to be completely scrapped and replaced. The new act should include mandatory adult sentences for youth who commit violent crimes. The act also needs to remove the censorship aspect for those who commit indictable crimes.