Calls to fill multiple judicial vacancies across the country have grown louder since an Alberta judge threw out a first-degree murder case last week.
Lance Matthew Regan was charged with the first-degree murder of fellow inmate Mason Tex Montgrand, 21, in late August 2011. Both men were serving prison sentences in Edmonton Institution, a federal maximum security jail.
Regan was due to stand trial by judge and jury on this matter for four weeks beginning Monday.
Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench judge S.D. Hillier found that the case took too long to get to trial. On Friday he decided to stay the charges against Regan, stating that the time lapse between the initial charge and the conclusion of the trial was a violation of the accused’s right to be tried within a reasonable time, typically set at 30 months.
St. Albert-Edmonton MP and Conservative Deputy Justice Critic Michael Cooper said this could have been avoided if the province had more sitting judges.
He is calling on federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to immediately fill the dozens of judicial vacancies, including seven in Alberta.
“The minister of justice has not taken filling judicial vacancies seriously,” said Cooper, who has repeatedly pressed the minister on this issue since last spring.
“As a result of the minister’s inaction, serious criminal cases, including a major fraud case in Red Deer have been thrown out due to delay. Now a case involving the most serious charge in the Criminal Code, first degree murder, has been thrown out.”
In June – after three sexual assault cases were pushed back 10 months due to lack of judges – Wilson-Raybould made a number of appointments to the province’s superior courts. But there still remain six vacancies at the Court of Queen’s Bench, and another two at the Alberta Court of Appeal.
Further, Alberta has considerably fewer superior court justices per capita than any other province, with 65 federally-funded positions. If Alberta had as many Queen’s Bench justices per capita as B.C., Ontario or Quebec, the province would have between 74 and 81 positions.
Speaking at a press conference in Halifax, N.S. on Friday, Alberta Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley said the decision to throw out Regan’s charges were “of deep concern” to both the provincial government and her federal counterpart.
“It’s really troubling to see the family of a victim who’s not able to get justice,” said Ganley.
Ganley said the Crown prosecution office is making efforts to ensure that serious and violent matters were triaged appropriately.
Though Hillier did not attribute any of the delay in the Regan case to a lack of institutional resources, his decision does refer to the “long standing shortage of judges in this province relative to population growth” and to the “dramatic increase in demand.”
He also states that these longstanding inefficiencies are likely behind the Crown’s decision not to pre-empt other cases in order to hear the Regan matter sooner.
“It advances nothing if pre-empting simply shifts the problem to another case,” reads the decision.
Cooper said if action is not taken soon thousands more cases across Canada could be thrown out due to delay.
He said the need for action is particularly acute in light of the Supreme Court’s recent Jordan decision, which made broad and sweeping changes to the framework that determines whether an accused has been tried within a reasonable time.
“It’s time for the minister to stop talking about appointing judges and actually get around to appointing judges,” said Cooper.
Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould assured reporters on Friday that additional appointments would be announced in the near future, along with a revised appointment process.
Ganley said she was confident moves would be made expeditiously.
