SPVM unsettled by Crown directive
Faced with lengthening court delays, the Crown (Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales, DPCP) has told prosecutors to prioritize the more serious crimes so that they won’t be thrown out for over‑long waiting.
SPVM police are disturbed by the directive because it may mean that a lot of people are let off the hook over matters that are criminal, although not as serious as homicide or violent assaults and abuse, which will be going to the top of the list.
…I was thinking, if Quebec can force doctors to work in the regions, can force nurses to do overtime shifts, why can’t they force new law graduates to act as prosecutors for a period of time? Then I thought, yeah, the Quebec Bar would kill that off immediately.
Joey 11:13 on 2023-02-19 Permalink
The issue is only explained far down that article – it’s about new rules about judges’ use of time, not a lack of prosecutors:
“ La Presse reported Friday that Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said the new instructions for judges are a direct consequence of the Court of Quebec’s decision to require judges to sit every other day rather than every third day. The new ratios put more than 50,000 cases at risk of exceeding the Jordan limits, Jolin-Barrette calculated.”
Kate 11:57 on 2023-02-19 Permalink
I can’t make it add up. If they’re sitting 1 out of 2 days rather than 1 out of 3 isn’t more judging getting done?
mare 13:59 on 2023-02-19 Permalink
It was also confused to get that sitting here apparently meant ‘sitting it out’ and not ‘sitting on the bench’. So confusing, the separation of Law and Sports.
Tim S. 15:54 on 2023-02-19 Permalink
Like many here, I am not a lawyer, but I gather much of judges’ time is spent writing decisions and so on. So more time sitting in court could lead to worse backlogs in actually delivering verdicts.
I have an aunt in the UK who serves as a kind of lay magistrate – she was given some basic legal training and serves on a panel that assess relatively minor crimes. Sort of a jury plus, I guess. I wonder if a similar system here would ease pressure on the system or just absorb more administrative resources. But just as every medical condition doesn’t need to be assessed by a doctor with 8+ years of training, maybe not every case needs a professional judge.
Joey 20:29 on 2023-02-19 Permalink
Basically they are doubling the non-bench time, giving judges more time to deliberate and write judgments. So, if in a given month they used to spend 10 days each in court and in chambers, now they will spend 6/7 days in court and 13/14 in chambers. The head of the Court says this is necessary to make better decisions and that the lost days should be made up by adding more judges (41, to be precise); the minister says this will mean too many cases will have to be dropped because of the timeline limits from the Jordan ruling. I gather a lot of this is posturing to influence the mediator working it out, but the primary issues seems to be shortage of bench hours for judges, not necessarily the shortage of prosecutors.
Kate 12:42 on 2023-02-26 Permalink
Joey, a belated thanks for spelling this out for me.