JUSTICE NOT BEING SERVED
Judge lashes out over Legal Aid lawyer shortage
In a rare public expression of opinion, a Saskatoon judge placed blame on Legal Aid Saskatchewan’s head office for a “dire” shortage of lawyers representing society’s most vulnerable people in the city’s courtrooms.
Speaking from the bench on Thursday in Saskatoon, provincial court Judge Barry Singer said he was dissatisfied with a “systemic” shortage of Legal Aid lawyers that is leading to people accused of crimes “sitting in the can.”
“I think people are suffering. These are people on remand that haven’t been convicted. It’s directly related to a shortage of law- yers,” Singer said after a series of adjournments.
“Other (Legal Aid) offices don’t have the same problem … Other prosecution offices don’t have the same problem. Somebody’s picking on you guys,” the veteran judge added.
Singer’s comments come as the government agency issues layoff notices to six administrative staff in Saskatoon, part of a major restructuring that will also leave three lawyer positions unfilled.
Most of the roughly 3,300 recent arrest files — known as duty counsel work — handled by the Saskatoon office each year are expected to be farmed out to private lawyers beginning in the fall.
Those cases involve representing clients through the early stages of the criminal justice system, from a first appearance to a bail hearing or guilty plea. Legal Aid staff lawyers will continue to handle other types of files.
While Legal Aid CEO Craig Goebel insists the changes are necessary to improve the organization’s flexibility and keep clients off remand and moving through the court system, others disagree.
Two Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1949 officials said this week that top government officials led them to believe the changes were a response to “personnel issues” in Legal Aid’s Saskatoon office.
Lawyers across the province’s justice system, meanwhile, have expressed concern about the shift, arguing that experienced Legal Aid lawyers are the most capable of handling the “front end” of the criminal process. The same lawyers have also said Legal Aid lawyers are overworked and underfunded.
“There’s a legitimate fear in the legal community in this province right now that what has happened in Saskatoon will serve to weaken Legal Aid,” Saskatchewan NDP justice critic and lawyer Nicole Sarauer said in an interview this week.
Singer practised law for more than two decades before he was appointed to the bench in 2002.