No parallel justice system for immigrants, says Quebec judge in criminal harassment case
A Quebec judge says Canada cannot have a separate judicial system for immigrants who come into conflict with the law amid a national debate over the role immigration status plays in sentencing.
Provincial court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos made the observation in the case of a married immigrant in Montreal who harassed his former girlfriend for six months. The man wanted her as a second wife, which he considered acceptable under Sharia Law.
“Immigration consequences cannot take a sentence out of the appropriate range or justify what would otherwise be an unfit sentence,” said Galiatsatos in his March 23 sentencing decision. “They must not be allowed to dominate the exercise or skew the process either in favour of or against deportation.”
The judge cautioned that the consideration of immigration status must not lead to a parallel system of criminal justice in which non-citizens would receive lighter sentences than those imposed on Canadian citizens for the same offence committed in similar situations.
He cited several examples where appeal courts have stepped in to overrule discharges given to immigrants in domestic violence cases and substituted jail time.
Federal Conservatives have seized on the issue.
Last fall, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner introduced a private member’s bill, C-220, that would prohibit judges from taking into account the impact a sentence would have on an offender’s immigration status.
“It should be a stated policy of our system to get criminals out of Canada,” Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said in December, while speaking in favour of Bill C-220. “If someone is not a citizen, not a Canadian, and commits a crime, then they should be shown the door.”
In the case before Galiatsatos, the defendant, Raed Ahmad Sariss, arrived in Canada in 2018.
He was born in the United Arab Emirates from Palestinian refugee parents, according to the judge’s ruling.
He immigrated to the Philippines in 2010, where he married his pregnant girlfriend. His wife and children still live in Manila.
He met his victim at a Montreal bar where they worked. She was his employee and 22 years younger than him.
“Even though he was married, Sariss was comfortable with the relationship, since polygamy is permitted for Muslims,” the judge noted.
“In fact, he planned to marry the victim.
“He loved her. Besides, under Sharia, he is entitled to love more than one woman.”
The court heard that when the victim decided to end the relationship, Sariss refused to accept it. He embarked on an intense campaign of writing to her, following her and watching her, despite her pleas to be left alone.
“Even his arrest left him undeterred. Despite signing release conditions, one month later, he was again caught watching her at her home,” the judge said.
Sariss, 46, pleaded guilty to criminally harassing his former girlfriend, who was 22 at the time, between November 2023 and April 2024. He also pleaded guilty to breaching the terms of his release on May 16, 2024, by going to the victim’s home while prohibited.
His defence lawyer asked for a conditional discharge, which would not result in a conviction or a criminal record if the defendant fulfilled the conditions of the sentence.
The aim of a conditional discharge, the judge pointed out, is to avoid a potential deportation or other consequences on an offender’s immigration status.
At the time of his sentencing, Sariss had already been found inadmissible to Canada and was fighting to stay and bring his wife and children here.
But Galiatsatos said it is not the court’s role to use the sentencing process to solve an accused’s immigration predicament.
“It is certainly not my function to usurp the jurisdiction of Canada’s immigration system by crafting a sentence that will circumvent the proper mechanisms that are already in place,” he said, adding that Sariss had given conflicting accounts of his situation to him and the Department of Immigration.
The judge said a discharge would be contrary to the public interest.
“The level of criminal harassment was particularly intense. It was premeditated, longstanding, impervious to pleas to be left alone and rooted in unacceptable values of domination and control. The accused’s insight is severely lacking. He thinks he did nothing wrong.”
Instead, the judge said “a short and sharp sentence of imprisonment in a custodial setting is warranted in order to impress upon the accused and other like-minded men that stalking of this nature is no trivial matter.”
Galiatsatos sentenced Sariss to 75 days in jail, to be served intermittently on Wednesdays and Thursdays, to be followed by three years of probation.
The Crown had argued for a sentence of six to nine months in jail.
The judge’s sentence might have no effect on Sariss’s pursuit of permanent residency. In Canada, a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissable if they are convicted of a criminal offence that leads to jail time of more than six months.
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