Canada - Making justice more efficient...

OFF THE WIRE
Source: montrealgazette.com
The federal government has taken a promising step toward taming the excesses of so-called "mega-trials," those long, intricate criminal proceedings that sap our court systems and cost taxpayers millions of dollars.
The Fair and Efficient Trial Act, introduced this month, includes several proposals that would streamline such proceedings without endangering the rights of the accused.
There's no doubt that "mega-trials" have proved their utility. Tough, complex cases involving organized crime, serial killers, or terrorist conspiracies often demand plenty of dedicated resources. Such trials can put criminal leaders like Maurice (Mom) Boucher of the Hells Angels behind bars. One enabled prosecutors in Vancouver to mount an effective case against serial killer Robert Pickton.
Mega-trials, however, are unwieldy beasts, and when they go wrong, they can go horribly wrong. In 2002, for example, Jean-Guy Boilard of Quebec Superior Court blew away $2.7 million of taxpayers' money when he abruptly and somewhat whimsically ended the trial of 17 leaders of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang by removing himself as presiding judge. This intemperate response to a letter from the Canadian Judicial Council, criticizing him for the way he had blasted a lawyer in another case, sparked a whole new trial -and a whole new round of expenses.
More notoriously, the trial of the men charged in the bombing that killed 329 people aboard an Air India flight produced little in the way of retributive justice, despite its $130-million price tag.
The proposed legislation would help prevent such disasters in the future, or at least mitigate their most egregious effects. For example, allowing joint hearings on evidence to be presented in separate cases would go a long way to reducing wasted effort, as would a provision that would do away with the need to rehear preliminary motions if a mistrial makes a new trial necessary.
But the most interesting proposal would allow the appointment of a "case-management judge" who would be able to set deadlines, decide preliminary motions relating to disclosure or the Charter of Rights, and encourage the opposing sides to agree on ways to simplify the proceedings before the trial started.
That job would seem to require the combined talents of a fastidious housekeeper and a no-nonsense Mother Superior. But assuming such people inhabit the judicial benches, this common-sense provision should help to oil the often creaky wheels of justice.
It's unfortunate that the bill doesn't allow for naming a backup judge to take over should the presiding judge quit because of ill health or ill temper. The Quebec Bar Association proposed just such a measure in the wake of the Boilard-Hells Angels debacle, and it still seems like a sensible idea to us.
But even without that, this is a good bill that deserves support in the House of Commons. Mega-trials will never be neat and tidy exercises in bureaucratic efficiency, but this legislation would will go a long way toward minimizing the mess and the cost, without damaging the administration of justice.
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