Less money, not more, for B.C.'s justice system
“But here’s the thing,” Clark said. “We are putting more money in at the same time that crime is dropping, the number of cases going to court is dropping and the length of cases is actually staying the same. It just doesn’t add up. We are adding more money to the system…"
No, here’s the real thing, Premier.
There is not “more money.” There is less money. As the following chart shows, the Attorney General’s operating budget has been cut by almost 20 per cent in the last four years.
AG budget estimates (in 000s)
2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12
545,454 465,198 468,487 443,204
The big cut came after Gordon Campbell’s 2009 election budget. The HST wasn’t the only surprise in the post election budgets. The biggest hit was taken by -- you guessed it -- court services.
Every other key justice line item – the judiciary, prosecution services, was either cut or flat-lined over that time. And of course, with inflation flat lining means a cut in service.
To recap, there isn’t more money as the Premier claims. There’s way, way less money. And the cuts were concentrated in our court system.
As for the claim that there have been fewer cases? That's not what the Attorney General’s ministry says in its service plans. Here’s the problem civil servants outlined in the 2010/11 Service Plan:
“The volume of small claims cases in Provincial Court has increased by 13.7 per cent over the last five years to over 19,000 new cases opened in 2010/11.”
Criminal cases are also growing, according to the ministry: “[T]he total number of Provincial and Supreme Criminal Court cases (including adult, youth and traffic) coming into the system has risen by 7 per cent over the last five years.”
What's more, criminal cases are getting more complex and time consuming: “Criminal trials have also steadily become more expensive, lengthy and complicated," the document reads. Much of that is related to complex corporate cases and new forms of evidence like DNA.
Taken together its taking longer for criminal, civil and family cases to get to trial: Wait times have seen enormous increases:
“The median age of a small claims case at its first substantive appearance has increased by 35 per cent from 150 days in 2008/09 to 203 days in 2010/11. The median age of a small claims case at trial stage has also grown to 400 days from 320 in 2008/09.”
So 20 per cent less money and between 13 and 7 per cent more cases, depending on the area of law. On to of that those cases are longer and more complex. You do the math.
What has this government done about it? They’ve reduced the targets in their service plan to reflect the cuts.
In 2009 Attorney General Wally Oppal set a target to reduce the median time to trial for civil small claims in Provincial Court at 281 days by 2011/12. In 2010, the new Attorney General Mike de Jong raised that target to 318 days.
Similar Orwellian adjustments were made for small claims settlement conference targets and family law cases. The bottom line is that B.C.’s justice system is performing exactly as the BC Liberals expected after the cuts.
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Former B.C. attorney general Ujjal Dosanjh says court backlogs were a big problem in the 1990s. Feb. 16, 2012. (CTV)
By: ctvbc.ca
Date: Thursday Feb. 16, 2012 6:08 PM PT
A former B.C. attorney general says that delays in the provincial court system aren't a new phenomenon, and it will take more than money to fix the problem.
Ujjal Dosanjh told CTV News that during his term with the last NDP government in the 1990s, court backlogs were leading to stayed proceedings against suspected criminals, just as they are today.
"These are difficulties that any government faces," Dosanjh said, adding that more funding isn't the solution.
The official opposition began hammering the Liberal government on the issue this week, after learning that a child luring charge had been stayed because of "intolerable" delays. In that decision, Judge Daniel Steinberg blamed government underfunding for the overloaded court system.
As it turns out, the same judge complained about the same issue in 1997.
According to a report in The Vancouver Sun, Steinberg stayed a charge of drug possession for the purpose of trafficking that summer after an approximately three-year delay.
"Society deserves far better than what they received in this case,'' he reportedly told the court.
In 1998, B.C. had 134 provincial court judges handling a load of 256,510 new cases. Today, 130 judges are tasked with 232,555 cases.
Leonard Krog, the NDP critic for the attorney general, was at the issue again during question period on Thursday, pointing to a Jan. 30 decision that saw impaired driving charges stayed against Wilfred Ronald Friesen in Chilliwack. Friesen was found guilty last year, but a provincial court judge ruled that the 33 months it took to secure that conviction were unacceptable.
Friesen's defence lawyer Philip Riddell says it's nothing he hasn't seen before.
"Unfortunately, it's not an unusual case because we're getting a lot more delay. A couple weeks ago I had the Crown stay a charge up in Kamloops because we were looking at 22 months on a simple one-day trial," Riddell said.
Provincial court judges tossed out 109 cases last year because the accused waited too long to get to trial, doubling the number of cases stayed in 2010. An estimated 2,500 cases are currently in danger of being tossed -- about 18 per cent of all cases in the system.
NDP leader Adrian Dix says the government deserves the bulk of the blame for the current situation.
"There are difficult choices all the time, but this one was largely created by a government that hasn't applied adequately resources and hasn't done reforms to match its decisions," he said.
The government appointed nine new judges to provincial courts earlier this month, and Premier Christy Clark has appointed lawyer Geoffrey Cowper to perform a review of the justice system.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Ed Watson
Ignoring the facts won't solve the problem. Indeed the problem has been around since the NDP's last tenure however this government has had 11 years to at least begin addressing the problem. Instead they deliberately cut the Ministries budget year after year. Their logic I assume is that its better to spend scarce resources on four lane highways to ski hills and stadium roofs than support public safety.