Court delay hampers reporting
Keeping public apprised of what goes on in our courtrooms a challenge
This article is part of the Star’s trust initiative, where, every week, we take readers behind the scenes of our journalism. This week, we look at how one Star reporter looking for an Ontario court file found roadblocks every where she turned.
Reporters who cover Ontario’s justice system have long lamented the lack of transparency they can encounter while navigating the courts.
Courts are supposed to be open to the public — and that includes bail hearings, trials and appeals, as well as records filed in cases. (While the courts are presumptively open, there are certain aspects of procedures that are subject to publication bans, it should be noted).
But whether it’s obtaining copies of documents, exhibits, or transcripts, the reporter’s job of keeping the public apprised of what goes on in our courtrooms can be challenging, and often frustrating, task.
Case in point: reporter Tamar Harris’s recent trip to the Oshawa courthouse to cover the court appearance of two Durham Regional Police Service officers facing assault charges.
Cst. James Edward Scholtes and Cst. Thomas Broadfoot were each charged with assault causing bodily harm, obstruction of justice and obstructing a peace officer after they pulled over a vehicle in Oshawa on April 26, 2017.
According to the Special Investigations Unit (SIU), an arm’s length agency which is called in to investigate reports of police involvement in deaths, serious injury or allegations of sexual assault, the officers arrested the 35-year-old passenger and took him to the police station.
A short time later, the man was taken to the hospital by ambulance suffering from a serious injury.
Harris was dispatched to the Oshawa courthouse on March 22, 2018, when the lawyer for the officers was making a court appearance, in an effort to learn the name of the alleged victim (the SIU doesn’t typically release victims’ names).
Harris arrived at 9:30 a.m. and went straight to the courtroom to wait for the officers’ appearance.
She was also hoping to see the court file in order to find out the name of the alleged victim. The case came before the judge two hours later, at 11:30 a.m., but went on recess shortly after.
After the recess, Harris approached the court clerk and requested to see the file. The clerk said she’d have to wait until the next recess, as there wasn’t enough time to allow her to see the file.
Harris returned to her seat and waited through the next block of appearances by others charged with various offences unrelated to the officers’ case.
After these cases were heard, Harris again approached the clerk again to ask to see the file, but was told she would have leave the courtroom immediately because the court was going on recess again.
At this point, Harris had been at the courthouse for more than three hours.
“It’s essential to have the file on hand when writing the story,” Harris said. “Having that file means you have all the official information and can, perhaps most importantly, factcheck properly. Making sure we get a story right is the most important part of doing our job as journalists, and having that documentation is key to that.” When the courtroom opened back up an hour later, Harris approached the clerk again with a request to see the file.
This time, the clerk allowed her to see the file, but only for about three minutes, as the judge was returning any moment.
Luckily, that gave her just enough time to find the alleged victim’s name, but nothing else.
She was told that she would have to wait until the file was returned to the file room at the end of the day before she could get a paper copy.
Harris spent the next hour doing research and pulling files on other cases while she waited for the police officers’ file to be delivered to the file room.
At around 4:30 p.m. she started to get worried, knowing that the file room closed half an hour later and that the file still hadn’t been returned.
At 5 p.m., the file room closed, and Harris wasn’t able to get a copy. “I don’t think we should accept a system where a journalist can spend eight hours in a courthouse and not get a copy of the file they went there for,” Harris said.
“In the end, it is detrimental to freedom of information if a public document is not publicly accessible.”
Brian Gray, a spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General, said the duties for court staff when Harris was there “were particularly lengthy that day as there were hundreds of matters addressed in the relevant courtroom.”
He said it was “unfortunate” that the file had not yet been returned to the administration office before it closed but that it was open for the reporter “to return to the court, or send a representative, to obtain a copy of the file the following morning.”