It was the speech that felt like a slap in the face to criminal defence lawyers.Ontario Attorney General Yasir Naqvi, speaking to the Empire Club of Canada in Toronto last month, said he had written to his federal counterpart asking for reforms to the Criminal Code that would greatly limit the use of preliminary hearings as a way to speed up the justice system.The hearings are typically held before trials in Superior Court, which handles the most serious cases, such as murder, where witnesses testify under oath and allow for a lower court judge to determine if there is enough evidence to send the accused to trial.“We need to make bold changes to speed up and simplify the criminal court process,” Naqvi wrote to federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould.The speech came as a surprise to the criminal defence bar, some of whom took to Twitter to vent their frustration, denouncing Naqvi’s idea as short-sighted and nothing more than a political move that won’t lead to real change. They also criticized the lack of consultation on the issue with the Criminal Lawyers’ Association.“Like many knee-jerk reactions on the part of the attorney general, it makes for nice headlines but will do little to address the underlying problem of insufficient judicial resources and insufficient funding for the infrastructure (Crowns, staff, space, legal aid),” lawyer Michael Lacy told the Star.Naqvi’s idea was not radical. It has been floated for decades by governments, think-tanks and even the Supreme Court as a way to combat chronic delays in the court system, with proponents saying that historic rationales for preliminary hearings no longer exist.Opponents, particularly defence lawyers, are adamant that prelims still have value. They say they allow both sides to narrow the issues ahead of trial and, in a small number of cases, reveal that the evidence is so weak that the case cannot proceed to trial. Prelims also allow the defe ...
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