The Globe and Mail reported over the weekend on a University of Ottawa conference where the Ontario justice system got another flaying over waste, professional misconduct, and systemic dysfunction. University of Toronto criminal law prof Michael Code (is working on a report on problematic megatrials for the Attorney General’s office) told the conference that political and judicial pooh-bahs at “very high” levels were tossing around ideas to fix what’s ailing the justice system.
And the patient is at death’s door, apparently: Justice Moldaver joined Prof. Code on a panel and ran down the litany of woes plaguing Ontario courts. Legal aid is being squandered on a continual flood of pointless trial motions; juries are fed up with neverending trials; green defence counsel with little experience and even less judgment grasp at legal straws, wasting everyone’s time; “abrasive, abusive” counsel drag courtrooms into warfare while cowed judges are afraid to do anything about it. “We cannot afford to allow even a few lawyers to warp the system in this way,” said Code. “I do not think the train of law reform that is coming down the tracks will be turned back simply by saying there are a few bad apples.” Oh the times, they is-a changin’.