SPEED UP TRIAL TIMES
When proceedings are stayed in criminal trials, nobody gets justice. That’s what a judge bluntly admitted this week as she allowed Adam Picard, accused in the June 2012 killing of Fouad Nayel, to walk free from the Ottawa courthouse. Justice Julianne Parfett had little choice but to stay his case: He’d been in custody almost four years due to delays getting the trial started.
Parfett laid much of the blame for this on Ottawa’s Crown attorneys — where it justifiably belongs. The defence pulled its share of legal manoeuvres, but “the Crown was put on notice ... that the clock was ticking and they had a positive obligation to proceed expeditiously,” her ruling said.
Hard-working Crown prosecutors won’t like much of what the judge concluded, but they had better pay attention. In July, the Supreme Court of Canada laid down the law in a case called R v. Jordan: The delay between charges and the completion of trial in Superior Courts should be no more than 30 months. Otherwise, the accused’s charter rights to a speedy trial are violated.
The Supreme Court also said there is “a culture of complacency within the system towards delay.” And a Senate committee studying trial delays warned that “immediate action to address them is required by all levels and branches of government.”
Yes, Crowns are overworked. There are resource shortages and staffing issues — from a lack of judges to inadequate space for juries. But in the criminal justice system, the balance of power is weighted against accused people; that’s why they have charter protections. If Crown attorneys don’t act efficiently, or fail to properly prioritize, rights can be violated and judges can be forced to release people who may be guilty of very serious acts.
It has happened before. Following a 1990 Supreme Court ruling on trial delays, tens of thousands of charges were stayed. The current Ottawa case is not the first time the justice system has faced such bleak challenges.
Because of R. v. Jordan, there is now the risk that other serious charges will be stayed. The mother of one homicide victim in Ottawa is already worried the accused in that case will walk free because of trial delays.
Picard’s situation is high-profile because the accusation was first-degree murder, and because he spent the entire 48-month period until this week’s stay of proceedings behind bars. If the Crown cannot get through cases as serious as this one in a reasonable time, it has a problem. If it doesn’t solve it for future cases, the Jordan ruling will — to no one’s satisfaction.