The April 20 Province newspaper had a report on the Provincial Court in Abbotsford initiated by the newly created court watchers.

Among other things, they had this to say:

“Okay, so the survey we’re going to let you in on wasn’t carried out by a group of Harvard-educated statisticians — just a gang of regular folk concerned with the daily public events that unfold in the provincial court system in the Valley.

Judges will easily dismiss these findings as the work of that zany Abbotsford senior Gertie Pool and her vigilante victim’s rights people. But what do judges know?”

“Tuesday, April 4: Thirty one cases called. Lawyers and or offenders didn’t bother to show for 12. That’s almost 40 per cent. Of the dozen absentees, eight were lawyers, six were accused, and in two cases, neither party appeared.”

“It’s costing taxpayers millions,” Pool told the Province editorial board yesterday. In an eight-hour court day it’s not unusual for the court to sit for just two. If people only realized what was going on.” Thanks to Pool, they’re starting to.”

We communicated with the CBA Director of Communications and Public Affairs and we generally agreed that “they should know better.”

Should they? Should they not dare to notice that criminal cases are on spin cycle in the Provincial Court? That remands lists with dozens and even hundreds of cases on the list take only two hours to spin over to another list. That lawyers and accused don’t even bother to show up.

Perhaps the report is not accurate or the court watchers didn’t know all the facts. However, in sitting throughout the province I have seen the same pattern.

The Province is right in targeting judges. Judges after all are responsible for the state of the lists and for the progression of cases though the court. Having embraced that responsibility in the form of Order in Council 1356 and 1357, otherwise known as the Criminal Caseflow Management Rules, it is discouraging to read the letter to the editor in the April issue of BarTalk by Michael Newcombe, Esq.

There is an attitude among some members of the Bar that everything is fine – just leave us alone. If everything is fine, how do we account for the two-thirds of cases set for trial that “disappear” on the trial date. There is a cost not only in dollars, but in the public perception of the administration of justice.

When that ball gets rolling, and the courts don’t pay attention to the administration of their lists, legislatures step in to fill the vacuum. The American experience tells us that legislatures respond to a system that encourages last minute stays and deal making by such things as mandatory sentencing and legislated prohibitions against guilty pleas to lesser charges on the trial date.

Mr. Newcombe says the problem is that there are too many trials and not enough trial dates. That is correct. We can fix that in one of two ways:

• One way is to build more courthouses and appoint more judges and prosecutors and hire more court staff to stand by in case the trials that are set up really do go to trial, or
• We can ask Crown to do early review, make decisions, take ownership of files, provide particulars and speak to defence counsel and require crown and defence counsel to confirm the need for a trial prior to fixing a trial date.

I wouldn’t put my money on the first option.

E. Dennis Schmidt, Associate Chief Judge

This letter was published in the June 2000 issue of BarTalk.