A dire shortage of Provincial Court judges will be remedied soon, B.C. Attorney General Mike de Jong promised on Wednesday.
The growing number of criminal cases being thrown out due to systemic delays in the system also has the AG pondering a change to the way the judges in B.C.’s busiest court are appointed.
“There will be a significant number of appointments in the next few weeks,” said de Jong.
Recent media reports highlighted the plight of two Vancouver Island women whose car was broadsided by a suspected drunk driver in 2007. Due to a number of delays caused by the Crown, the judge stayed the charges, despite the fact one of the victims suffered a serious brain injury and is now an invalid.
“The situation is different depending on where you go in B.C.,” de Jong said of the judge shortage during an exclusive interview with The Province.
He noted the Judicial Council of B.C. interviews lawyers who have applied to become judges “on an ongoing basis because people are retiring each year.”
The council’s recommendations are passed on to the attorney general, and cabinet decides who becomes a Provincial Court judge.
“Right now it’s done on a general B.C.-wide basis,” said de Jong.
“There is some thought that perhaps what we should be doing is recruiting on a geographic basis.
“It may make sense to [put out a call for judges for a certain area]. It forces everyone to recruit pro-actively, you have to look ahead to where the vacancy is going to be.”
A recent investigation by the Victoria Times-Colonist found the Provincial Court has only 114 full-time judges, down from 135 four years ago. In the same period, the number of part-time judges has swelled from 16 to 35.
The judge shortage was highlighted this week by CBC News reports that several impaired driving cases have been thrown out in B.C. courts this year because of excessive delays – a shortage of sitting judges being one of the main problems.
“We have considerably more part-time [Provincial Court] judges today than we had a number of years ago,” said de Jong.
“We have more senior judges and there are fewer full-time judges, although some of the part-time judges do sit on a nearly full-time basis.”
The Charter of Rights guarantees anyone charged with a crime the right “to be tried within a reasonable time.” In B.C., that has come to mean somewhere in the area of 18 months.
If the case can’t be heard in a timely way due to delays not caused by the defendant, the judge has the power to throw it out.
“In general, any time a case is abandoned because of systemic delay, that’s troubling,” said de Jong.
He likened a courtroom’s staff to “a justice team, with the judge as its captain.”
Clerks, sheriffs and support staff all have to be paid, and the overhead costs of keeping a courtroom open for business are substantial.
“It costs between $1-1/2 million to $2 million a year to run a courtroom, it’s not just the judge’s salary,” he noted.
Another change de Jong is contemplating is “some greater involvement by lay people in that Judicial Council process.
“As a way of improving the connection between a community and a region of the Provincial Court, I think there is a role for perhaps involving a couple of people from the communities being served as part of that interview process,”he said.
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