THE CANCER IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied Isn't Just A Cliche.

It's an acknowledgment of the corrosive effect that lengthy trial
delays have on public confidence in the justice system.

Unreasonable delays are unfair to the accused. At least those accused
who don't instruct their lawyers to stall their trials, because,
knowing they are guilty and will be convicted eventually, also know
they'll get up to triple credit from judges for "dead time" spent in
custody awaiting trial.

They're unfair to victims and their families, to whom the years spent
waiting for justice, if it ever comes, are a horrible limbo where
they cannot begin to get on with their lives.

They're unfair to honest witnesses, who are required to recall
events, often in excruciating detail, that happened many years ago,
under cross-examination by clever lawyers skilled in rattling even
the most sincere individuals, by highlighting so-called discrepancies
between what they told police then and what they remember today.

Lawyers then use these small discrepancies to unfairly suggest the
witness is unreliable, even lying, when all that has happened is
their memories have faded in a normal, human way -- often due to
trial delays caused by the same lawyer now attacking their
credibility before the jury.

Finally, lengthy trial delays are unfair to the public, who have the
right to expect a minimally competent justice system, which is not
what we have now.

Last week there was another example of the corrosiveness of delayed
justice, resulting in the collapse of one of the largest, most
expensive investigations into alleged police corruption in Canadian
history. Charges against six officers on a now-disbanded Toronto drug
squad, some retired, some not, were stayed by Superior Court Justice
Ian Nordheimer after a decade of delays.

He blamed Crown prosecutors, mainly for failing to disclose evidence
to the defence in a timely way.

Defence lawyers said this meant their clients had been exonerated,
but that's not what it means to most of us. It means we'll probably
never know whether or not there was widespread corruption in the drug
squad, and by implication, the police force.

While there's a theoretical chance charges could be re-instated down
the road, given the reason the judge stayed the charges, the actual
chances are somewhere between slim and none.

Let's be clear. A 10-year delay in bringing these cases to trial
where the Crown was chiefly responsible, is grossly unfair to the
accused. Judge Nordheimer was right to end it.

But the public has a right to know why these fiascoes keep happening,
over and over again. Judges and lawyers bear part of the
responsibility, but so do politicians.

Indeed, any politician or government which claims to be cracking down
on crime, but which isn't addressing this cancer of unreasonably
delayed justice, is playing us all for fools. Don't get fooled again.