CANADA PAYS LIP SERVICE TO TIMELY JUSTICE
I wouldn’t recommend the new Senate committee report on the state of timely criminal justice in Canada for the beach — it makes for a bleak read.
The title says it all — Delaying Justice is Denying Justice: An Urgent Need to Address Lengthy Court Delays in Canada.
But there is still the depressing rhetoric, “catastrophic consequences ... beyond unacceptable ... proceedings remain slow, creaking, lumbering ordeals ...”
“Canadians deserve a system that is far more accessible and efficient,” the senators conclude in the 23-page interim document.
No kidding: It’s news that across the country the legal system is a sclerotic anachronism?
In 2013-2014, the median time from laying a charge to final disposition was 123 days and a median of five court appearances.
A murder case took 451 days, a sex assault charge 321 and an attempted murder prosecution 314. Those are medians. Many, many cases took much longer.
But we have heard all this before — I’d say, annually, for the last decade.
The Senate’s standing committee on legal and constitutional affairs isn’t saying anything new as far as I can tell.
Even the Supreme Court of Canada, which takes years to recognize there’s an issue on the table, recently weighed in on this worry.
It scolded governments for their lack of attention to the problem and a majority on the court laid down a new framework for “reasonably prompt justice.”
The high bench warned that the change may result in thousands of cases being tossed, but so be it — cases should be tried within 18 months in provincial court and 30 months in B.C. Supreme Court. I’ll believe it when I see it. As the committee noted, overall crime rates have been declining since the early 1990s “and yet there does not seem to be a reduction in the overall costs to the justice system or trial delays.”
The waste of resources on procedural matters is a scandal in itself. Guess why? At the same time they’ve dragged their feet on technological change and modernizing procedures, judges have made police work more process-heavy and trials more complicated and lengthy.
Let’s not mince words — as the senators point out, the most significant factor contributing to court delays is the “lack of robust case and case-flow management by the judiciary.”
In short: The biggest hurdle to timely justice is judges — the undisciplined way they run their courtrooms and their lack of managerial discipline.
Unfortunately, the very idea of calling judges to account for case management and the efficiency of their courtroom is considered a veritable heresy. As a result, we don’t get transparent data about what’s happening in our courts.
The senators urge governments and the various provincial and superior court judiciaries to improve case-management practices and reduce unnecessary court appearances.
Lot’s of luck. We’ve heard that before, too.
“Judicial independence” has been expanded to mean not only decision-making independence, but also administrative independence, the power as a group to ignore modern managerial tools and anything remotely resembling an honest cost-benefit analysis.
Until we’re willing to have a discussion about judges and transparent data about their courtrooms, we’re reduced to guessing about who’s doing their job, who’s treating the bench like a sinecure and where the real problems lie.
There is no judicial CEO who can call judges on the mat and no way to force them into the 21st century. All we can do is ask nicely. And that’s why the problem is across the legal system, not only in criminal proceedings.
Our civil justice system was ranked 18th in the world in 2015 — could most people even name 18 countries?
Here’s how B.C. Court of Appeal Chief Justice Robert Bauman describes the family law landscape: “The system continues to suffer from delay, costliness, complexity, service and funding gaps, insufficient understanding of aboriginal circumstances, inconsistency, uncertainty and unmet needs.”
But he adds soothingly, “it is not all doom and gloom ...” LOL. The chief justice is to be commended for his optimism, especially since he warned five years ago the system was in crisis and nothing appears to have changed.
The senators will be back next year with a full report — but don’t expect them to sing a different tune.