North Gets Three New Provincial Court Judges
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 @ 1:38 PM
Prince George, B.C. – The B.C. government has appointed nine new Provincial Court judges in regions around the province to further address caseload pressures on B.C.’s courts and improve access to the justice system.
Prince George will receive two of the new appointees, while four will serve the Greater Vancouver and Fraser Valley regions. One new judge has been appointed to each of Nanaimo, Smithers and Penticton. The chief judge has assigned the new judges to these specific communities in response to the court’s needs throughout the province, taking into account such matters as caseload demands, recent transfers within the court, retirements or judges choosing to move to the part-time program.
The total cost to government to support one Provincial Court judge is up to $1.4 million annually, including the judge’s salary and other costs for court administration staff, sheriffs, prosecution services and judicial support.
Attorney General Shirley Bond says “Our government has been consistent in saying it would always consider appointing judges as one of the solutions to ease pressures on the justice system, but these newest appointees are only part of a solution for a justice system in need of reform.
“In the coming days, we’ll be looking very closely at larger reform of the system and specifically how we can find efficiencies and long-term solutions to the pressures our courts are facing, instead of just looking at more funding as the only answer. We will continue to work with the judiciary, the legal profession and others in the system to come up with common-sense ideas to help us do this.”
The new judges for our region are:
Randall William Callan will serve in Prince George and his appointment is effective April 2, 2012. Lt.-Col. Callan is a legal officer with the Canadian Forces in the Office of the Judge Advocate General. He has been deployed to Afghanistan and Sudan and was counsel for the Government of Canada and the Canadian Forces before the Somalia Inquiry in 1996.
Victor Galbraithwill serve in Prince George and his appointment is effective Feb. 13, 2012. Galbraith has practiced law for more than 20 years and he is currently administrative Crown counsel in Quesnel. Galbraith was also Crown counsel in Williams Lake for seven years.
Terence Wright will serve in Smithers and his appointment is effective March 1, 2012. Wright was born in Terrace and has practiced law in that community for more than 25 years. He is an associate with Warner Bandstra Brown, and his practice focuses on criminal, family and civil litigation. Wright is on the board of directors for the Terrace and District Community Services Society.
Comments
Excellent! Now we will have more judges on the payroll to drop even more charges against criminals due to their cases taking too long.
That ought to reduce that backlog they are all so concerned about.
It just scares me to death to think of Judges Wright and O’byrne in the same room.
Congrats Terry.
Very happy to see the appointments. Now, if we can grab a few more prosecutors and court staff, we can sit more courts, thus cut delays, all they have to do is increase sentencing guidelines so if these fools do the crime, they can actually visit our illustrious correctional facilities for more than a day.
Hopefully these three gentlemen are not adherents of the ‘revolving door justice system’ school of thought.
There may hope for a more disciplined approach from Mr. Callan, coming from the military. (we can only hope)
metalman.
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