Senator’s trial moving at a snail’s pace

If ever you wondered how it is that the wheels of justice not just grind so slowly in Canada but barely seem to be turning at all, exhibit A comes fresh from the criminal trial of the suspended P. E. I. senator Mike Duffy.

This trial was originally scheduled for eight weeks, in two bunches ( one in April- May, the second in June) separated by a break.

It is now going to take twice that long — another eight weeks.

While this may be splendid news for Duffy, who has made no secret of his desire to drag the house that Stephen Harper built into the muck with him and who must be salivating at the possibility the trial could still be going on with the October federal election drawing ever closer on the horizon, it is less so for anyone who cares a whit about efficient justice, let alone for Canadians who foot the bill for the majority of costs of the system ( albeit not for Duffy’s defence).

The original estimate was rendered laugh- out- loud funny almost immediately, when Duffy’s lawyer, Don Bayne, spent more than two days each crossexamining the first two witnesses, one whose evidence had been given in chief in less than an hour.

Yet urgency is a complete stranger to the judicial process.

Never has there been any sense of that in the courtroom.

( An equivalent might be while a fire smoulders quietly in a corner, the firefighters arrive, then set about arguing whose turn it is to hold the hose, and who should turn on the water and what sort of fire it is, anyway.)

When, on that first day, Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt announced that “I’m bad at taking breaks” and asked the lawyers to remind him if things were going on too long — you know, purely for the good of the staff — it must have been his notion of a little joke. Rarely have I seen a judge more attentive to the clock.

So infrequently did proceedings start crisply on time, whether first thing in the morning or after the three scheduled breaks a day ( morning recess, 75- to- 90- minute lunch, afternoon recess), that it was the fool who arrived promptly. I have the notes to prove the point.

By the time court took its scheduled break — a few days before schedule, of course, on May 8 — it was clear that at minimum, the trial would need at least another additional session of several weeks. That’s now grown to eight.

Yet nothing has lit a fire under the collective arse.

But for the prosecutors, who have tried to save time ( and money) by having as many witnesses as possible testify by phone or video link, there’s been little recognition that the proceeding is in slow motion, as if weighed down by some of the concrete forms sold by a company Duffy used to dispense his office budget.

Scheduled back in early May was June 1 and perhaps June 2 for lawyers to argue the question of Parliamentary privilege, which the Senate has asserted over an internal audit report on senators’ “primary residences,” a critical aspect of some of the 31 charges Duffy is facing.

So sure was this schedule that the prosecutors, who are on the sidelines of the privilege issue that will be argued by Peter Doody for Duffy and Max Faille for the Senate, put everyone on notice that they’d have no witnesses waiting in the wings, because the day would be taken up with legal arguments.

The court and all the lawyers were also notified at that time that the media were seeking intervener status in the privilege argument — and fair enough, because the Senate, left to its own devices as it too often has been, has consistently demonstrated the regard it has for the public’s right to know and, in a broader sense, the public interest.

The regard it has is zero; the Senate would far rather be left alone to manage its own affairs, maîtres chez nous thank you very much, with senators like Duffy free to spend Canadians’ money as they see fit.

( The media consortium, represented by Peter Jacobsen and Tae Mee Park, includes Postmedia News, which owns the National Post.)

So then, three weeks ago, the first day of this week, and maybe part of the second, was set aside for the privilege argument.

But before 11 a. m. Monday, the court already had taken two breaks, so the lawyers could yammer among themselves about the order of things, and what should come first, and should it be done all in one fell swoop or what. Judge Vaillancourt granted the media intervener status and then allowed Faille, for the Senate, to file a factum in response to the media factum, and he had to have time to prepare that.

While the media’s argument that the audit should be made public is separate and apart from Duffy’s argument, surely the fundamental issue is the same: Either the audit is privileged, or it isn’t.

But Faille has until next Monday to file his factum and muster his arguments, the privilege matter is adjourned until June 11 and 12, which means two more actual trial days lost, and, with prosecutors rightly having arranged no witnesses, court adjourned for the day shortly after 11 a. m.

It’s real work, maybe, only by the standards of the Senate.