The Supreme Court of Canada held in a 5-4 decision Friday that the mandatory minimum one-year prison sentences for possessing and accessing child pornography are unconstitutional, stating that the offences cover a wide range of scenarios with varying levels of severity, including those for which one year’s imprisonment would be a “grossly disproportionate” punishment.

The scenario used by the high court majority to illustrate this point involves an 18-year-old with no criminal record who receives a text message from a friend of the same age. That message includes a sext from the friend’s 17-year-old girlfriend, which technically constitutes child pornography because of the girlfriend’s age.

In contrast, the dissenting justices argued that the mandatory minimum sentences for possessing an

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