Charges have been thrown out against five men in a $13-million fraud case because there was no judge available until January to preside over their 12-week trial in Toronto. In a decision staying the charges last week, Superior Court Justice Bonnie Croll said there simply aren’t enough judges in a court with a “heavy and challenging caseload” to hear every case in a timely manner.The ruling comes as the Superior Court of Justice — which handles all civil cases and the most serious criminal cases such as murder — continues to warn that other criminal cases may be dismissed unless the federal justice minister appoints more judges soon. “Unless all vacancies are filled quickly, we have significant concerns about our court’s ability to keep up,” Norine Nathanson, senior counsel in the office of the chief justice of the Superior Court, told the Star in a statement this week.Nathanson pointed to the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark 2016 decision, R v. Jordan, which set strict timelines to complete criminal matters: 18 months in provincial court and 30 months in Superior Court. “For criminal matters, there is concern about applications to stay serious criminal charges under Jordan. There have been some successful applications and we are concerned about more,” she said. “The challenge of judicial vacancies in a court the size of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice is ever present. It requires consistent and vigilant efforts by the Minister of Justice and the judicial advisory committees so that judicial appointments are made proactively, or at minimum, very shortly after a judicial vacancy arises.”If the timelines in the Jordan decision are breached, the accused person’s constitutional right to be tried within a reasonable time is considered to have been violated, unless the Crown can prove there were exceptional circumstances for the delay.“To meet the Jordan timeline, it i ...
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