Prince George, B.C.- Over the past couple of years, there have been plenty of stories in the news about delayed or dismissed court cases in B.C. because of  backlogs, or a lack of resources to deal with matters in a timely manner.

 

Yesterday, in Prince George, a scenario played out in Courtroom 307 that saw B.C. Supreme Court  Justice  Glen Parrett expressing concern.

 

At issue, a  request to have a trial changed from B.C. Supreme Court to Provincial Court. While such  a request is  permissible, it was all about the timing.

 

The application was being heard  yesterday morning, two days after a Supreme Court Justice had been flown in from the lower mainland to hear  the trial which was scheduled to start on Tuesday morning.

 

 

While Crown and Defence Council apologized  to the court for the “inconvenience”,  Justice Glen Parrett advised this was more than an “inconvenience.” He told them the late change had “demolished” 8 days of court time that had been scheduled to hear the case, and that it cost the Canadian taxpayer considerable expense as the travel and accommodation costs for the trial judge  had to be covered.  Justice Parrett said the late request “contributes to a growing public view that the system doesn’t work.”

 

Crown Counsel, Cassandra Malfair said the request was being made because it was thought the case could be best handled by Judge O’Byrne at the provincial court level as he has  dealt with some of the co- accused in this matter and is very familiar with the case.   While apologizing for the late application to change to the Provincial  court level, she said she and the Defence council had just resolved some of the issues surrounding the request. 

 

As if that wasn’t enough, there was issue number 2, where was the accused? According to Section 561, subsection 7 of the Criminal Code of Canada, when an accused   is to “re-elect” the mode of trial, the accused must be present. The accused in this case was not in the court room.   Defence quickly checked with the Sheriff to see if his client had been brought to the courthouse from the Prince George Regional Corrections Centre,   then advised the court that “As luck would have it” his client had indeed been transported to the Court house and was being escorted to the court room.

 

The new trial is scheduled to start next week, in Provincial Court.