Why Do So Many Cases Get Thrown Out For Delay In Canada?

You’ve probably seen in headlines, and it’s shocking to many members of the public. We see a lot of cases get thrown out for trial delay in Canada, and a lot of people think that’s unfair. Well, it’s not about that. It’s about our constitutional rights, and I’m here to talk to you today a little bit about that. 

Welcome back to our channel. We’re here to break down complex legal issues into plain language. And the topic today is, then, why do so many cases get thrown out for trial delay in Canada? Well, it all has to do. First of all, let’s talk about section 11b of the charter, our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That section says, everyone has the right to be tried within a reasonable time, reasonable time period. And we had a case in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada set the delay timelines, very strict guidelines. And that’s the Jordan case, Supreme Court of Canada from 2016. Now Jordan said this, if you’re in Provincial Court, Ontario Court of Justice, that’s the lower court, or any Provincial Court in Canada for that matter. 

But let’s take the Ontario Court of Justice, from the time the information against the accused is laid until the time of the trial. If that takes longer than 18 months, and portions of those delays were not caused by defense counsel, but due to systemic problems, court backlogs, etc., that case could potentially get stayed. In other words, the charge effectively gets dismissed. It’s a strict guideline, and it is followed in Ontario carefully. If the matter is in the supreme Superior Court of Justice, Ontario Superior Court of Justice Jordan says the timeline is 30 months from the date of information until the completion of the trial. So those are the guidelines and defense counsel, If the court and crown have not met the guidelines, defence will often bring a delay application, and if they’re successful, the charge gets stayed, which is tantamount or equivalent to getting the charge dismissed. It gets dismissed under the under the charter and under the Criminal code as well. So section 11b is the operative section. 

So why is this happening? Well, it goes down to a lot of things, and I’m going to give an example. So, one issue we have, we don’t have enough judicial resources. There are not enough judges. There are not enough courtrooms. We’ve got a lot of crime, and the government needs to spend more money, frankly, on judges. The states sees to have a much better job of moving their cases through the system and their timelines. They get cases on very quickly. In Canada, we’re having problems in certain counties. For example, Brampton is a very busy jurisdiction. A lot of delay issues there, and some cases get thrown out. And obviously they have to offer decent deals or negotiated deals for certain accused to avoid these delay situations. So that’s one issue. It’s a systemic problem of a court backlog, lack of judicial resources, lack of courtrooms, just too many cases in the system. Okay? So that’s one.

Let’s take a complex case like a fraud with 1000s of pages and electronic disclosure, if the crown delays getting disclosure, this causes a lot of problems. It results because you don’t have to set a trial date until you have enough disclosure to set a trial date. And I’ve been involved in many cases for years, ranging from sexual assault, to fraud, up to murder cases where the crown delays the disclosure too long, and it results in delay where either you get a fantastic offer from the crown because they know of the delay, or we were able to successfully stay the charge. So there’s many reasons this has happened. So, you take a fraud case, disclosure is too much delayed. You have a sexual assault case, they don’t get key messages and text messages in time, so we can’t analyze the case. It keeps getting put over. 

They don’t have enough courtroom so the trial gets set late. So, there’s all these systemic problems caused by the crown or caused by systemic government problems that we don’t have enough courtrooms in the province. And this is replete. Even some small, smaller counties have a lot of these delay issues. And people say this is very unfair, but look, we have this right. Just like the states, they call it right to a speedy trial. We call it trial delay under Section 11 B, right to a trial reasonable time period. And we do have that right. And what does this do? Why do we have this right? Well, things are hanging over accused said. Bear in mind, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. There are anxiety and stigma hanging over their head for all that period of time. We want quicker trials so memories don’t fade as well. And you know, these are important. These are important issues in Canada. And it’s, not a mere technicality, it’s our right, and many cases, unfortunately, are getting thrown out. 

And there’s a very simple solution for this. In the counties that have delay problems, they need to hire, in some cases, more crown attorneys, in other cases, more judges and build more courtrooms. Is as simple as that. The government knows this and cases still get thrown out. I’m not talking like hundreds and thousands of cases, but some very important cases have got thrown out. You’ve seen it in the news, and this is our right under the Canadian Charter rights and freedoms. And so there you have it. This is why cases are getting delayed past the time period. Defense Counsel is not going to sit on their hands. They bring delay applications, and in some cases, they win them. So, there you have it. Justice delayed is justice denied. 

Thank you for watching our video. We are absolutely committed to bringing you the best possible criminal and DUI educational videos. If you found this video helpful, please like it and subscribe to our YouTube channel, if you’ve been charged with the criminal offense in Ontario and require our services, please click on the link in the description below.