The federal Liberals are set to introduce a new bill tackling the issue of administrative segregation, more commonly known as solitary confinement.
A bill was put on the notice paper on Oct. 11, which is how the government gives notice that it intends to table legislation in the House of Commons.
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Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale will table what is being called An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act and another Act.
While there is no timeline attached to the notice, bills put on the notice paper can be presented in the House of Commons at any point after 48 hours.
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It is not clear at this time what new limits or bans the new bill could put in place on the use of solitary confinement.
The federal government introduced a bill in June 2017 that proposed limiting the length of stay in solitary confinement to 21 days once the bill was passed and then limit that further to no more than 15 days after an additional 18 months had passed and it actually came into effect.
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However, that bill never made it past first reading and has wallowed in legislative purgatory ever since.
At the same time, a series of legal challenges that came after it have resulted in court rulings that strict limits are needed and that using solitary confinement long-term is unconstitutional.
A government official would not say whether the new bill will deal specifically with the long-term use of the practice.
But the individual acknowledged there have been concerns raised repeatedly by justice advocates over the last year and a half that the language in the existing bill does not fully address the concerns raised in two significant court rulings that have come since.
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A major ruling by the B.C. Supreme Court in January 2018 called the practice unconstitutional and said the length of time a person can be in solitary confinement should be limited to no more than 15 days.
READ MORE: B.C. Supreme Court strikes down indefinite solitary confinement in prisons
The effects of that decision were put on hold for one year to give the federal government time to pass legislation reflecting the ruling.
In December 2017, an Ontario Superior Court judge also deemed the long-term use of solitary confinement in federal prisons unconstitutional.
He called for much stricter limits of no more than five days in order to prevent psychological harm to the offender.
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