http://www.lawtimesnews.com/201001186183/Headline-News/Boycott-expansion-raises-alarm
Imminent plans to expand the legal aid boycott to include additional charges and other levels of court could debilitate Ontario's justice system and undermine public confidence in it, according to legal observers.
Negotiations between the Criminal Lawyers' Association and the province, set to expire next week, have yet to produce anything close to an agreement, according to the CLA.
"It's time to turn up the heat," says CLA president Paul Burstein. "It will be a swift, noticeable, and provincewide expansion of the boycott — other cases and other levels of court."
Burstein wouldn't reveal specifics of the CLA's resolution for a broader boycott, which so far has included only first-degree murder and guns-and-gangs cases.
While the proceedings stalled by the boycott involve the most serious of charges, it has affected only about 100 cases until now.
"Go to your typical Ontario court, and it's absolutely business as usual," says James Morton, head of litigation at Steinberg Morton Hope & Israel LLP in Toronto and an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School.
However, if boycotting lawyers begin to refuse legal aid cases involving lower levels of court, the impact could be dramatic, he says.
"The Ontario Court of Justice level is balanced on a knife edge. Even a small delay somewhere along the line in the Ontario Court of Justice level is going to affect procedure enormously," Morton says.
Those holdups could have a "traffic-jam effect" in which delays could trickle down to proceedings for all types of charges.
"That could very quickly have a snowball effect across the province," Morton says.
The duration of the boycott, now in its seventh month, should also have the province concerned about the courts throwing charges out for undue delay, something he calls a chilling prospect considering the severity of the cases that have been languishing.
"People can accept, in a general sense, fairly minor crimes being dismissed because of technical issues."
The public generally recognizes the importance of ensuring the rights of accused to speedy trials, he notes.
But that recognition, he adds, is likely to give way to outrage if delays threaten a homicide prosecution.
"These are things that will upset folks, and rightfully so. I would be upset."
James Morton
1100-5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
416 225 2777
www.jmortonmusings.blogspot.com
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