Attorney-General Shirley Bond appointed nine Provincial Court of British Columbia judges February 8 and hinted that innovative strategies for cutting justice system costs are on the horizon.
“We’ll be looking very closely at larger reform of the system and specifically how we can find efficiencies and long-term solutions to the pressures our courts are facing, instead of just looking at more funding as the only answer,” Bond said in a release.
“These newest appointees are only part of a solution for a justice system in need of reform.”
NDP leader Adrian Dix told Business in Vancouver in January that Bond should appoint judges and otherwise reform the justice system.
“What we’re seeing now is both the impact of extensive cuts in the system and backlogs in the system that have been going on for years,” he said.
“This past year there was a dramatic increase in stays of proceedings. Both criminal and youth court cases were essentially kicked and not proceeded with because they had taken too long. These were serious cases.”
Indeed, there were 109 such stays of proceedings in the first 51 weeks of 2011. That compares with 56 in 2010 and 44 in 2009.
Dix would not commit to raising legal aid. Instead, he said it is something that the Liberals should look at to make the province’s courts function more smoothly. ?
Glen Korstrom
@GlenKorstrom