Law360 Canada (June 25, 2026, 10:58 AM EDT) --

Deepa Mattoo

For any legal practitioner or advocate deep in the gender-based violence (GBV) sector, certain names carry an undeniable historical weight. Recently, my mind has been occupied by a striking parallel: two landmark legal decisions, separated by more than 30 years and a vast ocean, yet fundamentally bound by the same name, the same history of horrific abuse and the same foundational concept: coercive control.

I am talking about:

• The historic U.K. criminal case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia (1992)
• Canada’s landmark Supreme Court decision, Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16

As a lawyer who has spent years fighting for survivors within the justice system, I cannot help but reflect on what these cases reveal about the true meaning of access to justice. While one case was anchored in criminal law and the other in civil liability, both expose the profound friction that occurs when rigid, traditional legal frameworks are forced to confront the lived, cumulative reality of systemic abuse.

This conversation has taken on sudden, critical urgency in Canada. We are witnessing a historic, simultaneous convergence of the common law and federal legislation. On May 15, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada issued its breakthrough ruling in Ahluwalia. Barely a month later, Bill C-16 (the Protecting Victims Act) advanced significantly through Parliament to codify coercive control within federal law.

The Protecting Victims Act marks a major legislative expansion of the Criminal Code, introducing a standalone hybrid offence for coercive control carrying up to 10 years in prison. The Act penalizes non-physical domestic containment by targeting continuous patterns of digital surveillance, financial deprivation, social isolation and threats to children or pets. Crucially, it elevates an intimate partner homicide to automatic first-degree murder if preceded by coercive control, while doubling the maximum penalties for non-consensual image distribution and sexual deepfakes to 10 years. Recognizing the immense systemic realignment required to handle non-physical evidence safely, Parliament embedded a mandatory two-year buffer into the statute, delaying its formal enforcement until June 2028.

For the first time, both arms of the Canadian justice system recognize a singular reality: domestic abuse is a web, not a single thread. Yet, this dual-track evolution completely rewrites how lawyers must interview clients, manage evidence and execute routine risk screening.

The U.K., 1992: Redefining criminal defences to grasp cumulative harm

To understand how far we have come — and how slowly the law moves — we must look back to the United Kingdom in the early 1990s.

Kiranjit Ahluwalia, a South Asian woman who had endured 10 years of severe physical, psychological and sexual abuse by her husband, set fire to his bed while he slept. He later died from his injuries.

Her initial murder conviction became a watershed moment for access to justice. At the time, the English legal definition of “provocation” required a “sudden and temporary loss of self-control” — a standard modelled entirely on male patterns of violence, such as an instantaneous physical fight. It completely erased the psychological reality of survivors, for whom a reaction to trauma is often delayed, calculated for survival and born out of prolonged terror.

In 1992, the Court of Appeal quashed her murder conviction (R. v. Ahluwalia), accepting a plea to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. By explicitly acknowledging cumulative provocation, the court broke open a rigid criminal framework. Access to justice in Kiranjit’s case meant forcing the law to look past a single fatal moment and view the entire, suffocating context of entrapment.

Canada, 2026: A landmark Supreme Court decision

In the Canadian landscape, the battleground for access to justice recently shifted from the criminal courts to civil and family law, thanks to the immense courage of Kuldeep Ahluwalia. For 16 years, she endured severe physical, emotional and financial abuse, compounded by the systemic vulnerabilities that so many racialized and immigrant women face.

In its definitive, historic decision in Ahluwalia v. Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16, a 6-3 majority of Canada’s apex court officially recognized a brand-new civil claim: the tort of intimate partner violence.

Writing for the majority, Justice Nicholas Kasirer clarified that the unique character of coercive control between intimate partners warrants its own distinct legal recognition. To succeed under this new tort, a plaintiff must establish that:


This is a monumental decision. Survivors no longer have to force their experiences into isolated legal pigeonholes like assault or battery to seek full accountability and financial restitution.

The journey from London in 1992 to the Supreme Court of Canada today shows that while the wheels of justice turn slowly, they do move when pushed by tireless advocacy, grassroots mobilization and courageous survivors.

In Part 2 of this series, we will pivot from the courtroom victories to the practice realities on the ground, exploring the hidden carceral traps of Bill C-16 and the radical overhaul required for legal pipelines, daily client intakes and risk screening.

Deepa Mattoo is the CEO of YWCA Toronto and a licensed barrister and solicitor in Ontario. A recipient of the Law Society Medal, she is the former executive director of the Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic and a deeply experienced human rights advocate who has led systemic law reform and litigation before all levels of court, including the Supreme Court of Canada. Her work centres on intersectional equity, and she frequently provides international expertise and training on trauma-informed legal practice and access to justice for survivors of gender-based violence.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

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