Justice on Trial

Statistical This paper is intended as a companion piece to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute Justice System Report Card, which assigns letter grades to the analysis of performance of provincial criminal justice systems over a wide range justice issues of metrics relating to efficiency and fairness, and finds many of the is hindered provinces to be wanting. [...] Not surprisingly, the decision does not examine the specifics of why delay has become the norm in the Canadian criminal justice system, although many of the delays are the direct results of Charter-based Court rulings. [...] Parts 1 and 2 we can of this paper explore the key statistics that reveal the efficiency and effec- tiveness of the justice system, and parts 3 and 4 offer conclusions based on understand the data and offer recommendations for each issue raised in turn.1 what causes delay and Additionally, this report is focused on the numbers of cases before the sys- inefficiency, tem rather than the crime rate, [...] A person One of the results of this crime reality is an increase in the remand (pre-trial charged with an custody) population, which is further exacerbated by the recent practice of administration the Courts to use their judicial discretion in s. 719 to award not only credit for of justice pre-trial custody at sentencing but to award extra credit due to the perceived less pleasant conditions for o [...] It is also important to recognize that most of the processes of our criminal justice system were designed prior to the implementation of the Charter of Rights in 1982.