WHEELS OF JUSTICE TURN TOO SLOWLY

When the Communists ruled the Soviet Union and everything - from bread
to cars - was in short supply, there was a standing joke about the
Russian who called an electrician to repair a light fixture. The
electrician said he wouldn't be able to come until two years down the
road.

Unfortunately, too many times our justice system crawls along at the
same excruciating, lumbering pace. According to the Attorney-General's
office, in 2006-07, 97,176 criminal charges in Ontario had been
waiting for trial for more than eight months.

Recently serious charges against six Toronto drug squad officers were
dismissed by a provincial court judge because it had taken too long
for the case to come to trial. Such situations are rare, but the fact
that they happen at all is cause for concern.

Nobody would suggest that a fair trial should be sacrificed on the
altar of expediency, but there is clearly something wrong with a
system that takes years for a trial. Government needs to rectify this
problem.