Law360 Canada ( September 26, 2018, 5:55 AM EDT) -- Appeal by the accused from the dismissal of her application for a declaration that the retrospective application of the screening provisions in s. 745.61(1) of the Criminal Code infringed her constitutional rights under ss. 7, 11(h) and 11(i) of the Charter. The appellant was convicted of first degree murder in 1995. She was sentenced to life imprisonment without eligibility for parole for 25 years. At the time of the offence, she was entitled to apply to a jury for a reduction of the period of parole ineligibility after 15 years in custody. When she was sentenced in 2001, the legislation no longer provided for direct access to a jury on a faint hope application. The appellant had to satisfy a judge, based on a written record, that there was a reasonable prospect of success. If the appellant cleared that hurdle, she then had to convince a jury that some reduction in the period of parole eligibility should be granted. By the time the appellant was actually eligible to bring her faint hope application in 2013, the legislation had changed again. As of that date, she could not get her plea before a jury unless she could first satisfy a judge, on a written record, that there was a substantial likelihood that her application would succeed before a jury. The appellant argued that she was entitled to have her application considered by a jury. She argued that judicial screening fundamentally changed the entire process in a manner prejudicial to her liberty interests and that the amendment in 2011, by ratcheting up the level of judicial scrutiny, further aggravated the punitive effect of inserting judicial screening into the process....