Source: Business in Vancouver
Byline: Jenny Wagler
The Canadian Bar Association, BC Branch (CBABC) says the province’s just-announced 10-step plan to reform B.C.’s justice system doesn’t go far enough.
Yesterday, the province announced 10 actions that it plans to launch “immediately” in response to an independent review of B.C.’s justice system, released in August, that critiqued “a culture of delay” in B.C. courts and called for sweeping changes.
Some of the actions the province has announced include:
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reducing case backlogs and improving overall efficiency with a new court scheduling system, Crown file ownership, expansion of criminal duty counsel services and an early resolution pilot project;
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streamlining routine practices such as the way information flows from prosecutors to the accused and their defence counsel, admission and discharges from corrections and workflow practices in courthouses to improve efficiency and service delivery; and
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setting performance measures that are relevant to the public and reporting on progress using tools like the Justice and Public Safety Plan and the JusticeBC data dashboard.
However, CBABC president Kerry Simmons said the province’s plan falls short in several ways.
She said it “is noticeably silent on details of the additional financial resources needed to support these proposed reforms.”
Simmons added that it fails to address a recommendation from both the review and the CBABC that the province immediately appoint additional judges to address “the huge backlog of cases at risk of being dismissed due to delay.”
“We are concerned that the proposed action plans to reduce the backlog and improve case management do not go far enough.”