BAIL SYSTEM 'CRUEL', JUDGES SAY

12-Day Wait Average In Ontario

Some Sleep On Floor By Toilet

It Was No Ordinary Mother-Daughter Outing.

Betty Vu, 23, and her mother, Muoi Thi Vu, 47, were thrown in jail
after being arrested in connection with a marijuana growing operation
in Vaughan. The law says they were entitled to come before a court
within 24 hours and to have a bail hearing without unreasonable delay,
ideally within that same time period.

But for nearly two weeks, there was no hearing. The Vus were shuffled
from cell to courthouse and back again, sleeping on metal bunks
without blankets and enduring strip-searches each time they returned
to jail, a court was told earlier this year.

Finally, after 12 days in captivity, Betty Vu appeared before a
justice of the peace and was released on $10,000 bail. Her mother's
bail hearing was delayed another day. Their lawyer, Peter Zaduk,
called their experience "Kafkaesque."

But it's no longer unusual in Ontario, where record numbers of people
are packed into jails awaiting their day in court.

They are presumed innocent, but often housed in "cruel" conditions,
creating an "intolerable" situation, said Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of
the Ontario Superior Court, citing the Toronto (Don) Jail as one example.

"To subject someone who is innocent to conditions like those at the
Don Jail is reprehensible and hardly anyone in government gives a damn
about it," Matlow told the Star in an interview.

He is one of a growing number of judges calling for an inquiry into
the problems, which include:

*Bail hearing delays. People charged with criminal offences in Ontario
must wait an average of 12 days for a bail hearing after being
arrested, according to the latest figures from the ministry of public
safety and security, which is responsible for policing and jails.

"The system is broken," Zaduk told a justice of the peace in
Newmarket. "I'm ashamed of this."

*Jail conditions. The correctional system makes no distinction between
people who are presumed innocent and those who have been convicted and
sentenced.

"They are all treated the same way and that, I think, is fundamentally
wrong," Matlow said.

He recently heard testimony from Don Jail security manager Jim
Aspiotis, who said as many as three people are routinely crammed into
1.8 x 2.7 metre cells, with inmates deciding themselves who gets a
bunk. Invariably, the stronger and "more menacing" win out while the
weaker ones sleep on a mattress on the floor, frequently with their
heads next to a toilet.

The mattresses often get soaked when toilets back up and flood the
cells. Opportunities for fresh air and exercise are limited.

And inmates are sometimes only given a change of clothes every two
weeks, the manager said.

The problems aren't just in Toronto. A pregnant inmate was recently
forced to sleep on the floor of a Milton jail cell.

*A soaring remand population. As incredible as it seems, the number of
people held in Ontario jails awaiting trial has surpassed the number
serving sentences.

About 63 per cent of Ontario jail inmates, or 52,179 people, were
awaiting trial in 2000-01, according to Statistics Canada. Since then
the numbers are virtually unchanged, correctional officials say.

It's impossible to tell from looking at the numbers whether too many
people are being held in pre-trial custody, said Gary Trotter, a
Queen's University law professor and a leading authority on bail. But
there are definitely "serious problems with the system," he said,
including unacceptably long delays for bail hearings.

In some areas, delays may stem from justices of the peace using
valuable court time for administrative tasks, such as interviewing
sureties, which can be done elsewhere, but the system also needs more
JPs and prosecutors, he added.

Trotter said the conditions of confinement are also an
issue.

The problem is more acute for people awaiting trial than those who
have been tried, convicted and sentenced, said Matlow. "That may be
obvious, but I don't think it is obvious to people in
government."

A member of the public, however, might appreciate how they or a member
of their family could end up in that situation, he said.

"Anyone could be picked out in error as having committed a crime and
it could take many months to unravel the problem. In the meantime, we
could be the ones forced to sit in a cell at the Don Jail, sleeping on
the floor with our head next to the toilet, with little opportunity to
get out and get exercise or fresh air."

"If that happened to one of us, we would scream outrage," Matlow
added. "But it goes on all the time."

"I think that one of the very fundamental problems is that there is no
political will - at least there has not been any political will - to
really address these particular problems in the case of people who are
detained while they are awaiting trial."

Monte Kwinter, Ontario's new minister of public safety and security,
agrees there is a problem and says it's "compounded by the fact we now
have some really serious fiscal restraints."

The Don Jail, for example, should be closed yet the province just
extended its lease for another year because a place is needed for
inmates in Toronto, he said.

While housing inmates is his responsibility, Kwinter said he has no
control over how many people are sent to jail. He suggested an
existing government committee with officials from his ministry and
other parts of the justice system must look for ways to minimize
pre-trial delays.

In the meantime, although the Don Jail "is not the greatest jail in
the world" it is "certainly a clean facility," he said, noting inmates
themselves do the cleaning.

But last September, after hearing Aspiotis describe life inside in
graphic detail, Matlow said he "cannot simply close my eyes, and even
my nose, and continue to send, without protest, human beings to a
place where their Charter rights are violated with impunity while they
await their trial."

"We talk about justice systems in parts of the world that are much
crueller than we are, but ours is every bit as bad," he added.

"We should not be so proud of our system. It's just as bad as any of
those countries."

Matlow isn't alone in his views. Recently, Mr. Justice Casey Hill, his
Superior Court colleague, said a pregnant inmate's treatment at the
Vanier Centre for Women, part of the Maplehurst complex in Milton,
fell short of standards for jailing prisoners of war under the Geneva
Convention.

She was forced to share a one-person cell with another inmate and
sleep on a thin mattress on the floor in a "shocking deprivation of
her human rights," Hill said in a ruling released last week, which
overturned a lower court decision denying her bail.

In an interview last month, Hill called for a "multi-partner study"
into why so many people are in pre-trial custody.

Just a week earlier, Mr. Justice Marc Rosenberg of the Ontario Court
of Appeal said the number of people held in arguably "inhumane"
pre-trial conditions is putting the integrity of the justice system at
risk.

He urged Attorney General Michael Bryant to "take ownership" of the
problem, saying it's also inconsistent with Canada's obligations as a
signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The treaty says prisoners in pre-trial custody should be separated
from convicted persons in a manner appropriate to their status.

When approached by the Star, Bryant refused to discuss the issue
personally, referring the queries to a ministry spokesperson.

The spokesperson said jail conditions are the responsibility of
Kwinter's ministry and bail hearing delays are often caused by defence
lawyers being unavailable for court - but the ministry continues to
look for solutions.

Matlow said someone must examine all the issues and come up with some
comprehensive answers. One option is independent public inquiry,
headed by a judge with testimony from experts.

Former premier Ernie Eves suggested jails were never intended to be
luxury hotels, Matlow noted.

"I guess I agree with that," he said.

"In a perfect world, I suppose, we would take over the Sheraton Hotel
and detain those people there. But that, even I admit, is
unrealistic."

Yet, at minimum, inmates considered innocent in the eyes of the law
should have an opportunity for privacy, visits from family members,
access to telephones and their own clothing and "a comfortable, clean
place to sleep," he said.