They're the kind of trials that go on for months, sometimes years — biker-gang trials, the Air India bombing case, the Willie Pickton serial-murder trial, and increasingly, routine murder and sex-assault trials.
With the justice system becoming more complex and sophisticated, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson will announce legislation Tuesday designed to reduce drawn-out "mega-trials" that he has said are consuming too much money and court time and "undermining public confidence in the law."
The legislation, promised in the throne speech opening Parliament last March, will be tabled in the House of Commons in response to several reports in recent years that have decried the fact that many criminal trials have taken on a life of their own.
The trend is attributed to more expansive and complex evidence, increased use of expert testimony, more aggressive courtroom conduct and the proliferation of preliminary applications involving admissibility of evidence, disclosure or Charter of Rights challenges.
Nicholson, in an August speech to the Canadian Bar Association, outlined many problems arising from mega-trials, including the risk of losing jurors, and even judges, and causing a mistrial. They can also infringe on a defendant's right to a speedy trial, leading to a stay of proceedings.
"Far from getting better, the problem is getting worse," he told lawyers. "Delays in bringing defendants to trial, combined with long, complex and sometimes fruitless prosecutions, have contributed to undermining public confidence in the law."
Mega-trials deal with serious offences such as organized crime, gang-related activity and terrorism. Proceedings can be exceptionally long because they often involve many defendants, multiple charges, complex evidence and lengthy investigations.
Federal changes have been in the works for six years, after a major Hell's Angels trial in Montreal in which 17 people faced various charges of murder, drug trafficking and organized crime came to halt after six months when the trial judge stepped down after he was reprimanded by the Canadian Judicial Council for insulting a defence lawyer in a bail hearing.
In previewing his plans at the legal conference, Nicholson said he will draw on the recommendations of several reports, including one last year from a federal-provincial steering committee. That expansive study called for numerous changes designed to streamline and bring renewed focus to mega-trials by giving them their own set of rules for judges and lawyers to follow.
One recommendation, which Nicholson noted he and his provincial counterparts have endorsed, would require any pre-trial motions for a case that ends in an aborted trial to be binding for any subsequent trials instead of going through the whole process again.
Other recommendations, for which there is a general consensus in mega-trial studies, include empowering judges to intervene earlier and more often to be on top of both pre-trial proceedings and lawyers' courtroom behaviour.
Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley wrote Nicholson two years ago, following an endeavour to cut down on mega-trials in Ontario, seeking legislative changes that would allow a separate judge to handle pre-trial motions.
A 2008 report in Ontario, by academic Michael Code, who is now a judge, and Patrick Lesage — the retired chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court — called for legal aid to provide more generous "exceptional fees" for complex cases to attract more senior lawyers, and to appoint only the most respected Crown lawyers to preside over mega-cases.
Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin weighed in on the "increasingly urgent problem" of long trials in a Toronto speech three years ago. She noted that murder trials, which "not too many years ago" would be over in five to seven days, now last five to seven months and "some go on for years."
source: http://is.gd/gAJP1
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