Supreme Court to hear HIV disclosure case
Canada’s top court is set to hear the case of two HIV-positive Canadians who did not disclose their medical condition to their sexual partners.
Clato Mabior, seen in a police photo, has recently finished his prison sentence and is set to be deported to Sudan in mid-February.
Lawyers for Clato Mabior will appear before the Supreme Court of Canada on Wednesday to argue that Canadian law criminalizes carriers of HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — and does not acknowledge variations in transmission levels.
Winnipeg-based Mabior was sentenced to prison in 2008 for 14 years after he was found guilty of having unprotected sex with four females and protected sex with two others, including a 12-year-old girl.
Mabior’s convictions hinged on his failure to inform his sexual partners that he has HIV. Four of the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
None of his partners were infected with HIV as a result of their contact with him.
Transmission risk was low, lawyers argued
At the time of Mabior’s appeal, court heard that medical tests showed he had a low level of infection between 2002 and 2004, the period in which the sexual encounters took place.
Mabior’s lawyers argued that his risk of transmitting HIV to his partners was therefore low.
However, the Crown argued that Mabior did not ever disclose his HIV status to his sexual partners, therefore denying them the right to consent or refuse to engage in sexual activity with him.
The Supreme Court will also hear arguments from lawyers representing a Quebec woman who had unprotected sex with her former spouse without first informing him that she was HIV-positive.
A publication ban prevents naming the woman, who is referred to in Supreme Court documents only as “D.C.”
The woman was found guilty of sexual assault and aggravated assault, but that conviction was later overturned on the basis that her viral load was undetectable during the period that the charges covered.
A number of organizations will appear at the Supreme Court hearing, including the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, L’institut national de santé publique du Québec, and the Criminal Lawyers’ Association of Ontario.
The court’s ruling may not benefit Mabior, a Sudanese refugee, as he is set to be deported to Sudan later this month.
Mabior has been awaiting deportation for over a year since he finished his prison sentence. Immigration officials have been keeping him in Canada to date due to political strife in Sudan.
source : www.cbc.ca
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Submited at Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 9:00 am on Health by chuck
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