Supreme Court sets new guide for trial times
Little impact expected for Northwest Territories cases
Shane Magee
Northern News Services
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Supreme Court of Canada decision released July 8 sets new guidelines for the right of a person charged with a crime to be tried within a reasonable time.
In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled cases should be completed within 18 months in territorial-level court and 30 months in superior, or Supreme, court. Delays caused by the defence side won't count against the time allotted.
"I don't think this is going to have a lot of impact here," said Charles Davison, a Yellowknife-based defence lawyer.
He said cases can typically be heard in Yellowknife within a few months, while cases in the rest of the territory can take longer because circuit court - court held in communities - isn't held as often.
The proverbial clock for cases to be completed begins ticking once a person is formally charged.
A breakdown of the average time it takes a case to work through those two levels of court wasn't available from the Justice Department.
However, only 5.8 per cent of cases, often those considered more complex, like large drug investigations or murders, take longer than a year to work through court in the territory.
Eighty five of the 1,465 adult criminal cases heard in territorial and supreme courts in the 2013-14 fiscal year took more than a year, according to Statistics Canada data. Of the total, 89 per cent were complete within eight months.
The territory is only behind Prince Edward Island in terms of how quickly cases are dealt with, according to Department of Justice spokesperson Sue Glowach.
In Yellowknife, trials can often be scheduled within two to three months for cases that are not overly complex.
Davison said recent drug trafficking cases may prove the exception - cases with a lot of information collected by police requiring disclosure to defence lawyers and many defendants being tried together.
One of the longest cases Davison handled in his four years here was defending a teen earlier this year charged with the first degree murder of Charlotte Lafferty in Fort Good Hope. She died in March 2014. The trial in supreme court began in late January this year and lasted several weeks before the teen was found guilty.
A separate second degree murder trial of a teen accused of stabbing Daniel Faine once in the chest in Ndilo on Sept. 14, 2013 is expected to go to trial in mid-August. When it returns to court next month, the case will have gone on for 33 months.
The decision set out that there will be a transitional period for ongoing cases.
The decision replaces previous framework for the right to a speedy trial established in 1992 by the court, which the majority of judges in the decision last week wrote "is too unpredictable, too confusing, and too complex."
If they get past the new timelines, the Crown will have to explain why it's an exceptional case, Davison said.
"It's useful for both sides to have these numbers out there to know what we should be working towards," Davison said.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruling suggests the new guidelines were needed because various levels of government weren't doing enough to keep the court system moving along fast enough.
There's a signaling that the Supreme Court justices want enough judges, prosecutors and resources to get things done in a proper time frame, Davison said.
Territorial and Supreme Court judges declined comment on the ruling. Judges do not typically grant interview requests.
