SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A video system designed to make it easier for people in custody to appear remotely for court dates in Yellowknife has been proving to be more of a headache than help in some instances.

While Department of Justice staff say most video conferencing calls at the Yellowknife courthouse are successful, technological problems have been known to slow down court proceedings. - NNSL File photo

During court appearances this month, a number of inmates at North Slave Correctional Centre (NSCC) who were attending via video conference complained they were unable to hear what the judge and lawyers were saying about their cases.

"It delays the whole system when you're waiting to set something up and you're waiting to connect," said Caroline Wawzonek, a defence lawyer at Dragon Toner Law Office.

"Not only is everyone becoming very frustrated, but we're delaying the entire hearing, therefore delaying other matters that might be set to happen in the afternoon or the next day."

NWT courts have been using video conferencing technology since 2000, according to Jeff Round, associate director of court services at the Department of Justice. It saves money and time by preventing witnesses or people in custody from having to travel from remote areas of the territory to Yellowknife for court appearances that are often very brief.

The video conferencing system is also used to communicate weekly with inmates at NSCC who have court dates. It's an alternative to transporting them from the jail to holding cells at the courthouse for the day.

"Sometimes that works seamlessly and they seem to hear us quite well," Wawzonek said.

At other times, the video freezes during the connection or simply doesn't connect at all. Wawzonek said she has at times been told to use the telephone for appearances instead.

Defence lawyer Peter Harte has had to appear for clients without them knowing what's happening in court, due to glitches in the courtroom's video conferencing system. He said he has been in situations where the connection drops and the screen goes dark, or where one party can hear what's going on over the phone but the video link doesn't transmit any sound.

"It's frustrating because I have to call them after court to make sure that they understand what's going on," Harte said. "It means that stuff sometimes takes place and the accused doesn't know exactly why."

Wawzonek said the video conferencing system is notoriously unreliable when the Crown needs to call witnesses from outside of Yellowknife to testify via video. The inability to link up with places down south, such as RCMP or correctional institutions, is "shocking in this day and age," she said.

While the GNWT and Department of Justice can control their own technology and networks involved in the video system, it's a different story once the connection leaves their building, Round said.

"For example, if we're connecting with somebody in Halifax, we don't control the equipment in Halifax or all of the networks in between," Round explained.

The Yellowknife courthouse connects via video with people in different locations each week, and fixing a connectivity problem with one location won't necessarily fix it for another, he said.

But the courthouse tries to ensure its equipment is replaced in a timely way - meaning routers for network connections and cameras are all updated over time, he said.

"We've seen lots of evolution of the equipment and the service is getting better and better over time," Round said. "The majority of our video sessions are successful."

Wawzonek said the video system is an important part of improving the efficiency of the justice system, but that it needs to be completely reliable in order to be effective.

"I think we'd be putting our heads in the sand to pretend that technology isn't a way forward," she said. "But we're also putting our heads in the sand by not finding a meaningful way to do that."

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