Patrick Michel, head of the Crown prosecutors in Quebec, in Montreal, on Oct. 4.Stephanie Foden
The number of criminal defendants in Quebec who have had their cases stayed because of court delays, including many charged with violent offences, has more than quadrupled this year, according to data obtained by The Globe and Mail.
Between April 1, 2021, and Oct. 31, 2023, at least 109 criminal cases ended with a stay of proceedings because of unreasonable delays, a Quebec Ministry of Justice compilation acquired through an access to information request shows. Of those, 75 stays were granted in the first ten months of 2023, compared with 18 in all of 2022. The Ministry of Justice did not compile this data before 2021.
The data show the impact of court delays on criminal cases seven years after a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision set clear guidelines for when a delay violates a person’s right under the Charter of Rights to timely justice. In a 2016 ruling known as the Jordan decision, the Supreme Court set a limit of 18 months from charge to completion for trials in Provincial Court and 30 months in Superior Court, with some exceptions.
Quebec also ended proceedings in an additional 196 cases this year between March 1 and Sept. 22, through a procedure called nolle prosequi, according to data released through a separate access to information request to the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP), the province’s prosecution service. The DPCP said this allowed it to prioritize and meet Jordan deadlines with other cases as weather, staffing, housing and other issues compounded delays in northern Quebec, where most of the abandoned cases were filed, as La Presse reported in September.
The Minister of Justice and the DPCP blame the increase in Jordan stays this year on a new court policy that took effect last year and reduced the number of days when judges sit for trials, which they say has made delays worse. Judges and defence lawyers, however, argue delays are often the result of mistakes by prosecutors and the police.
Karine Mac Donald, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Crime Victims Assistance Centres, said having cases stayed because of delays hurts victims and can cause them to regret coming forward.
“It’s clear that there’s a loss of confidence in the system,” she said.
Of the 109 stayed cases, of which many included multiple offences, 11 cases involved sexual assault charges, 22 cases dealt with other types of assault, and 12 included threats or harassment charges. Another 31 cases involved drug charges, 24 cases dealt with impaired driving, and 15 included theft or other property crime charges. Most stays of proceedings were granted in the Sherbooke, Montreal and Trois-Rivières districts.
In one case, a now 45-year-old man was accused of uttering threats, assault with a weapon – a knife – and sexual assault against a teenage girl, among other charges. The events allegedly occurred over a three-year period starting in 2009, when the victim was 12 years old.
The judgment in this case indicates that the defendant would have waited more than 38 months after being charged for the end of his trial, far beyond the legal limit, largely because police in Trois-Rivières waited a year after charges were filed – and only after the victim inquired about the case – to make an arrest, even though they knew where the suspect lived and worked.
When both parties were ready to go to trial after additional delays, some of which were deducted by the judge because they were attributable to the defence only, a court date could be scheduled only eight months later.
Trois-Rivières police spokesperson Luc Mongrain declined to comment.
In another case, a man who faced charges of assault and uttering death threats against his partner was also granted a stay of proceedings in August because he would have waited more than 21 months for his trial. Court of Quebec Justice Serge Cimon ruled that the Crown failed to disclose its evidence in a timely manner and demonstrated “a certain carelessness regarding the management of this file’s agenda.”
Patrick Michel, head of the DPCP, Quebec’s prosecution service, said in the death threats case and others, the agency conducted reviews to see what could be improved and to remind prosecutors of best practices. He emphasized that the vast majority of about 88,000 criminal cases introduced during the last fiscal year respected time limits.
Mr. Michel said Provincial Court policy reduced the number of days when judges hear cases and pushed trial dates nearer the limit, allowing for less wiggle room when mistakes happen. This policy, introduced by the Court of Quebec last fall, changed the ratio for judges’ activities from two days sitting on the bench for every day of drafting decisions to one day of hearing for every day of drafting, saying the old ratio had to be updated to deal with increasingly complex cases.
Quebec Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette declined to be interviewed for this story, but his press secretary, Élisabeth Gosselin, also blamed court policy for this year’s delays. She said the province is in the process of hiring 14 judges to help with the caseload.
Former Court of Quebec Chief Justice Lucie Rondeau, who held this role until late October, disputed that the policy affected delays, saying criminal judges “all sat above the ratio, therefore with very little impact on the reduction of court time” up to August.
Justice Rondeau said in an October interview that the adoption in 2019 of Bill C-75, a federal law reforming various aspects of criminal justice, inadvertently contributed to more stays of proceedings being granted now. The greater availability of summary convictions and the restrictions on preliminary hearings, both introduced as time-saving measures in C-75, mean more cases are now subject to the shorter, 18-month limit set by the Supreme Court.
The issue is compounded in Quebec by the Provincial Court’s broader jurisdiction in criminal matters compared with other provinces, Justice Rondeau said, where the same indictable offence would be subject to the 30-month limit because the trial is held in a Superior Court.
Marie-Pier Boulet, president of the Quebec Association of Defence Lawyers, agreed with Justice Rondeau and added that delays are most often related to the disclosure of evidence. She said as an example that if lawyers ask for a police officer’s notes, “it’s super important and basic, but it’s going to take six months before we get them.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
Almost all stays of proceedings granted thus far were in Provincial Court, but Superior Court trials – where murders and other cases requiring a jury are decided in Quebec – are also at risk. In April, eight people facing drug trafficking and illegal firearms charges in Trois-Rivières had their cases stayed, because they would have waited more than 43 months until the end of their trial.
In a ruling granting the stays, Superior Court Justice François Huot wrote that the Crown was careless and initially disclosed incomplete evidence. His own court also bore responsibility, as the defendants’ files were “lost in limbo” for nearly five months.
In a talk she gave in September, Superior Court Chief Justice Marie-Anne Paquette said the court meets the Jordan deadlines “at the cost of sacrifices that would not be required if we had sufficient staff,” and warned that more stays of proceedings are expected in the coming year.