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Challenge: Jamaican Man and Fothergill

challenge: In a decision released Tuesday, Fothergill said that if those standards are sometimes not met, this is a problem of maladministration, not an indication that the statutory scheme is itself unconstitutional, according to Metro News. The constitutional challenge was filed by Alvin Brown, a Jamaican man who was detained for five years before being deported last year. Judge Simon Fothergill says there are mechanisms built into the law to allow detainees to challenge their detention and the conditions in which they are held, which is enough to make the system constitutional. The father of six and his supporters argued that foreigners who cannot be deported for various reasons are subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in that they may spend years behind bars never knowing when they might be released. But Fothergill suggested a higher court should weigh in on whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires a time limit on detention for immigration purposes after which release is mandatory, and certified the issue for appeal. Brown sought to have the court declare that holding someone for more than six months before deportation is presumptively unconstitutional, and asked it to impose a hard cap of 18 months of pre-removal detention. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.