WINNIPEG — Manitoba has asked the federal government for changes to the criminal code that would allow for the elimination of preliminary inquiries in court proceedings as part of a pilot project.
In the letter obtained by Global News, three Manitoba judges along with the provincial justice minister have asked Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to take on the four year pilot project.
Heather Stefanson, the Minister of Justice, Richard Chartier, the Chief Justice of Manitoba, Glenn Joyal, Chief Justice, and Margaret Wiebe, Chief Judge, created a proposal that Joyal said was sent to the federal government in December.
In the letter, the four note the government’s job is to ensure timely, effective, and efficient access to justice, but they’ve seen that commitment challenged.
“The commitment has been challenged in recent years by unacceptable delays in the criminal justice system,” the letter said.
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Officials says this experimental plan is in an effort to get people to trial faster by avoiding lengthy delays in court proceedings.
“Preliminary inquiries are essentially like a dress rehearsal for a trial, and so it’s duplication efforts. We’re not saying eliminate them all together, but saying replace them with this discovery process,” Stefanson said.
The discovery process would be for crimes punishable by ten years or more in prison.
However, to see the proposal through would mean changes would have to be made to the criminal code.
The Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba called this an unjust proposal.
Scott Newman with the association said this solution will not solve any problems, but will rather create backlogs in a different way instead.
“It’s a situation where we think it’s imperative to prevent miscarriages of justice and wrongful convictions. It’s not a step that would service to eliminate any delay. In fact we think it would make things worse,” Newman said.
In 2016 the Supreme Court of Canada, ruled any case in Superior Court over 30 months unreasonable.
This proposal from Manitoba is to eliminate the possibility of throwing out further cases before they see through a full court proceeding.