A woman who was barred from driving for almost two years while awaiting sentencing would face “a kind of double punishment” if she were now handed an additional mandatory one-year prohibition, Canada’s top court has ruled.
The unanimous Supreme Court of Canada decision affirmed the common law convention that a court may grant credit for time already served when there is no explicit provision against doing so.
The ruling came Friday in the case of Jennifer Basque, who was charged with operating a motor vehicle with excess blood alcohol concentration in Moncton, N.B., in 2017.
Basque spent the next 21 months, between her initial
