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Ontario plans to hire more judges and prosecutors as well as launch and expand programs to allow more low-risk accused people to be released on bail as part of a new plan to reduce court delay and ease pressure on overcrowded provincial jails.
Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said Thursday the province intends to appoint 13 new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice as well as add 32 new prosecutors, 16 new Legal Aid Ontario duty counsel lawyers and 26 new court employees in an attempt to speed up the court process.
The province will also launch a new “bail beds” program in five cities that will provide supervised housing for low-risk accused who may have nowhere else to go while awaiting trial. It will also make Legal Aid Ontario lawyers available at the six provincial jails to allow for more effective bail hearings.
Naqvi said other measures include the enhancement of the existing Bail Verification and Supervision Program by making it available at a number of weekend courts and changing the eligibility requirement to make it possible for more accused people to use.
Naqvi said former chief justice Brian Lennox, former deputy attorney general Murray Segal, and deputy Crown attorney Lori Montague have all been appointed to provide advice on modernizing Crown policies and procedures in the area of bail. The government said the three will consider the use of sureties (a person to supervise an accused on bail) and bail conditions, the application of special principles for aboriginal offenders and specialized responses to domestic violence cases. Their advice will support the ministry’s development of a new Crown policy on bail that will be released within six months, the government said.
The province also plans to introduce a new “culturally-responsive” program to provide support to indigenous people going through the bail and remand process. The program aims to ensure accused people who are poor or lack community support – including those who are mentally ill, homeless or suffering from addiction – have the support they need to be released on bail.
“Our criminal justice system must work to protect the interests of all people — victims, the public and the accused,” said Naqvi in a statement. “Ontario is working with all levels of government, the judiciary and community partners to ensure that cases get to court faster, and that people waiting for their trials are not held in custody if they don’t have to be there.”
Several of the new measures are a direct response to recommendations made by a special task force appointed to examine overcrowding at Ottawa’s jail. The task force was appointed by Naqvi, who was then corrections minister, after the Citizen reported on inmates being forced to sleep in damp and mouldy segregation shower cells. The task force recommended the funding of bail beds and lobbied for dedicated prosecutors who would work with police directly to ensure low-risk offenders are released from the police station instead of being held for court.
They also recommended that the courts should refrain from imposing bail conditions that are likely to criminalize the symptoms of an underlying mental health issues, which appear to be among the things that will be examined by Lennox, Segal and Montague.
The decision to add judges, prosecutors, Legal Aid lawyers and court staff comes after an Ottawa judge stayed a first-degree murder charge against accused Adam Picard because of a four-year delay in getting the matter to trial. The decision outraged the family of his alleged victim, Fouad Nayel, and prompted victim rights groups to call for changes to how courts operate. The stay was the result of a Supreme Court of Canada decision that set new timelines of 18 or 30 months for cases to be completed, depending on whether they were in Provincial or Superior Court.
Related
The new bail measures come after defence lawyers, advocates for inmates and even a sitting Ottawa justice of the peace have criticized Ontario’s bail process as being too risk averse, too often placing onerous conditions on offenders or requiring them to have sureties, or a person to supervise them after they are released on bail.
The recommendations aimed to reduce the large percentage of inmates being held awaiting trial at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. It’s been estimated as many as 70 per cent of the inmates in the jail with a capacity of 505 inmates are being held there while presumed innocent and awaiting trial.
The task force report followed a scathing editorial by Justice of the Peace Julie Lauzon, who wrote in the National Post that the bail system in Ontario was a disgrace and “devoid of the rule of law.”
Lauzon complained that Ottawa’s main bail court, and others like it across the province, “have devolved into dysfunctional and punitive bodies.” People who are presumed innocent are only released under often restrictive or unrealistic conditions pre-negotiated and presented to the court by Crown prosecutors, she wrote.
The John Howard Society also released a report in 2013 that found bail is more difficult to obtain today than it was a decade earlier. That report also concluded that release conditions had become increasingly onerous.
But Ottawa Crown Attorney and jail task force member Vikki Bair has defended the way her office conducts bail hearings, insisting that they won’t consent to a release if it compromises public safety.
“The Criminal Code imposes a duty on all Crown attorneys in the bail courts of the country to protect and uphold the interests of the safety and security of the public,” Bair previously told the Citizen. “Crown attorneys in Ottawa do so appropriately, with caution and care, ethically and professionally every day.”
aseymour@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said Thursday the province intends to appoint 13 new judges to the Ontario Court of Justice as well as add 32 new prosecutors, 16 new Legal Aid Ontario duty counsel lawyers and 26 new court employees in an attempt to speed up the court process.
The province will also launch a new “bail beds” program in five cities that will provide supervised housing for low-risk accused who may have nowhere else to go while awaiting trial. It will also make Legal Aid Ontario lawyers available at the six provincial jails to allow for more effective bail hearings.
Naqvi said other measures include the enhancement of the existing Bail Verification and Supervision Program by making it available at a number of weekend courts and changing the eligibility requirement to make it possible for more accused people to use.
Naqvi said former chief justice Brian Lennox, former deputy attorney general Murray Segal, and deputy Crown attorney Lori Montague have all been appointed to provide advice on modernizing Crown policies and procedures in the area of bail. The government said the three will consider the use of sureties (a person to supervise an accused on bail) and bail conditions, the application of special principles for aboriginal offenders and specialized responses to domestic violence cases. Their advice will support the ministry’s development of a new Crown policy on bail that will be released within six months, the government said.
The province also plans to introduce a new “culturally-responsive” program to provide support to indigenous people going through the bail and remand process. The program aims to ensure accused people who are poor or lack community support – including those who are mentally ill, homeless or suffering from addiction – have the support they need to be released on bail.
“Our criminal justice system must work to protect the interests of all people — victims, the public and the accused,” said Naqvi in a statement. “Ontario is working with all levels of government, the judiciary and community partners to ensure that cases get to court faster, and that people waiting for their trials are not held in custody if they don’t have to be there.”
Several of the new measures are a direct response to recommendations made by a special task force appointed to examine overcrowding at Ottawa’s jail. The task force was appointed by Naqvi, who was then corrections minister, after the Citizen reported on inmates being forced to sleep in damp and mouldy segregation shower cells. The task force recommended the funding of bail beds and lobbied for dedicated prosecutors who would work with police directly to ensure low-risk offenders are released from the police station instead of being held for court.
They also recommended that the courts should refrain from imposing bail conditions that are likely to criminalize the symptoms of an underlying mental health issues, which appear to be among the things that will be examined by Lennox, Segal and Montague.
The decision to add judges, prosecutors, Legal Aid lawyers and court staff comes after an Ottawa judge stayed a first-degree murder charge against accused Adam Picard because of a four-year delay in getting the matter to trial. The decision outraged the family of his alleged victim, Fouad Nayel, and prompted victim rights groups to call for changes to how courts operate. The stay was the result of a Supreme Court of Canada decision that set new timelines of 18 or 30 months for cases to be completed, depending on whether they were in Provincial or Superior Court.
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The new bail measures come after defence lawyers, advocates for inmates and even a sitting Ottawa justice of the peace have criticized Ontario’s bail process as being too risk averse, too often placing onerous conditions on offenders or requiring them to have sureties, or a person to supervise them after they are released on bail.
The recommendations aimed to reduce the large percentage of inmates being held awaiting trial at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre. It’s been estimated as many as 70 per cent of the inmates in the jail with a capacity of 505 inmates are being held there while presumed innocent and awaiting trial.
The task force report followed a scathing editorial by Justice of the Peace Julie Lauzon, who wrote in the National Post that the bail system in Ontario was a disgrace and “devoid of the rule of law.”
Lauzon complained that Ottawa’s main bail court, and others like it across the province, “have devolved into dysfunctional and punitive bodies.” People who are presumed innocent are only released under often restrictive or unrealistic conditions pre-negotiated and presented to the court by Crown prosecutors, she wrote.
The John Howard Society also released a report in 2013 that found bail is more difficult to obtain today than it was a decade earlier. That report also concluded that release conditions had become increasingly onerous.
But Ottawa Crown Attorney and jail task force member Vikki Bair has defended the way her office conducts bail hearings, insisting that they won’t consent to a release if it compromises public safety.
“The Criminal Code imposes a duty on all Crown attorneys in the bail courts of the country to protect and uphold the interests of the safety and security of the public,” Bair previously told the Citizen. “Crown attorneys in Ottawa do so appropriately, with caution and care, ethically and professionally every day.”
aseymour@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/andrew_seymour
查看原文...
