Thank you.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. Thank you for the opportunity to address you all on Bill C-75.
By way of background, I'm a criminal defence lawyer. I practise in Toronto, which is one of the busiest criminal court jurisdictions in all of Canada.
Delay is something that is always on the front of mind of all the justice participants in Toronto—the judges, the Crown attorneys, and the defence. Over the last decade and a half, I've had an opportunity to act as counsel on hundreds of cases, and I hope to speak to you today on my experiences with preliminary inquiries and how they act as ways to preserve efficiency and fairness in the justice system.
As I sat here listening to the last panel, and now to Professor Silver speaking at this one, I was worried. I felt like everyone was starting to steal my thunder. However, I actually take comfort in the fact that it seems as though there's a lot of consensus among all of our views. I take hope from the fact that I share my views with so many different qualified experts.
First and foremost, it's important to state again that a preliminary inquiry isn't a one-size-fits-all. It's something that acts and adapts to different types of cases and different types of situations. It's a tool that can be used in a number of different ways. In some cases, as you've heard, a preliminary inquiry acts as an essential screening tool to weed out weak cases before significant time and energy have been allocated to prosecuting them. When the Crown attorney can't prove that there's some evidence capable of supporting the allegations, some charges or even, as we've heard, the entire case may be dismissed by the preliminary inquiry judge.
In addition to reducing the consumption of scarce court time and resources, this screening function can also reduce the amount of time people spend in custody for something they didn't do or something the Crown attorney simply can't prove they did. As others here have said, it would be a mistake to think that we can simply take the time allocated for a preliminary inquiry and just drop a trial into that time slot.
Preliminary inquiries are much more abbreviated hearings for a number of reasons.
First of all, judges don't make credibility findings at a preliminary inquiry. They must accept the witnesses' evidence at face value. Because of this, lawyers often focus the inquiry on questioning the most important witnesses or exploring legal issues they believe will assist them at trial instead of trying to prove to the judge the witness is not credible or reliable.
Our Criminal Code also equips prosecutors with tools to dispense with calling non-essential witnesses at a preliminary inquiry as long as that evidence meets the basic threshold of being credible or trustworthy. This explains why statistics show that most preliminary inquiries are completed in a day or two, because they are focused on discrete issues intended, in some cases, to demonstrate the strength or reveal the weakness of the Crown attorney's case.
In contrast, presenting a criminal case at trial is far more complex and may require the scheduling of weeks, if not months, of court time. Because of this, criminal trials often happen many months, if not a year or more, after a preliminary inquiry could have taken place.
It's simply good policy to have a mechanism such as the preliminary inquiry in place to screen out weak cases before significant time and resources are expended for their prosecution. This is especially true if accused individuals are remanded into custody pending the outcome of their criminal matter.
Even in cases when some charges aren't dismissed or when the entire case still goes forward to trial, the preliminary inquiry provides an opportunity to have fruitful discussions. As we've heard today, prosecutors may appreciate the significant weaknesses in their case, or as Ms. Dale spoke about in the last panel, defendants may see that there are no holes in the evidence against them and may opt to plead guilty, bringing an end to a prosecution before trial time is spent on it. Preliminary inquiries foster the resolution of trial matters.
It should also be considered whether or not both parties should be required, at the end of a preliminary inquiry, to have a mandatory meeting with the preliminary inquiry judge. We call them exit judicial pretrials. While they're somewhat rare and certainly not mandatory in Ontario, they can help foster additional resolution discussions because the judge, who's heard the witnesses testifying, can give some additional input that may help broker an agreement between the parties before the matter leaves that courthouse and goes to another venue.
In addition to screening and a resolution function, preliminary inquiries also play an important discovery function.
Now, there are some who will question the value of a preliminary inquiry in light of expanded disclosure obligations placed on the police and Crown. However, it must be said that disclosure can't act as a substitute for the discovery function of a focused preliminary inquiry, because while there is a constitutional right to disclosure, there's not a constitutional guarantee to an exhaustively thorough police investigation.
A police officer may simply interview a witness briefly, scribe their interview into a memo book and lay a criminal charge based solely on that information. There's no legal requirement that requires the officer to seek out other witnesses who may have witnessed the events, to collect social media evidence or text messages or to inquire whether or not there's been collusion between the witnesses. Requiring disclosure as an answer to discovery doesn't do it justice.
More importantly, of course, there's no ability to compel Crown witnesses to speak with the defence prior to a preliminary inquiry or outside of the court system. Defence lawyers who are trying to gain information or access to witnesses have no way of ensuring that they can hear that evidence before a case comes to trial.
Preliminary inquiries aren't just a tool for the defence. They can also assist the Crown attorneys, because any witness testimony elicited at a preliminary inquiry can be tendered at trial in the event that a witness later becomes unavailable to testify. We heard about that a little bit in the last panel.
This is especially true of vulnerable witnesses who may be very reluctant to come to court and testify in court, but who have already given their evidence in the preliminary inquiry. That prosecution can be saved by the Crown attorney by tendering the preliminary inquiry evidence, rather than having the case dismissed for a lack of evidence. A preliminary inquiry can also help prepare a Crown witness to testify, and to testify better at a trial by having testified once before at the preliminary inquiry.
There are a number of ways in which preliminary inquiries don't just assist the defence. They assist the Crown attorneys as well.
Preliminary inquiries also keep cases on track. They ensure accurately scheduled trials. They prevent late disclosure or late discovery of relevant medical or psychiatric evidence that can derail a trial and lead to lengthy trial adjournments. Studies have shown that lost trial time due to late disclosure is a significant contributor to the delay problem in Canada.
Because of the role preliminary inquiries play in the screening of weak cases—because they foster resolutions and because they prevent trials from going off the rails—it's my experience that preliminary inquiries don't contribute to delay or create inefficiencies in the justice system. The real question to ask is whether eliminating preliminary inquiries for most serious offences enhances fairness by protecting witnesses who may be required to testify twice in a criminal court proceeding.
While there may be some occasions where Crowns wish to protect vulnerable witnesses, our Criminal Code already offers a complete tool box to address those concerns. For example, as we've heard, where it's warranted, the Crown attorney can prefer a direct indictment and send a case immediately to trial without a preliminary inquiry. That can be done on a case-by-case basis. The Crown attorneys also have the ability to tender prior police statements under section 540 of the Criminal Code to avoid a vulnerable witness having to testify at a preliminary inquiry.
Our Criminal Code also contains a host of other provisions to protect vulnerable witnesses when they testify, including the ability to testify by closed-circuit television or from behind a screen, to order a court-appointed lawyer to cross-examine a vulnerable witness where the accused is self-represented, and to offer publication bans to protect the identities of some vulnerable witnesses. Again, all of this can be done on a case-by-case basis.
A flexible approach to preliminary inquiries, one that allows the inquiry to be tailored to the case at hand, will much better meet the objectives of fairness and efficiency and allow both the Crown and defence to benefit from some of the many advantages a preliminary inquiry has to offer. This approach is far superior to a wholesale elimination of the preliminary inquiry for most offences simply to protect vulnerable witnesses where other options already exist within the Criminal Code to achieve that goal.
I make the following three recommendations to the committee:
Number one is to maintain preliminary inquiries for all indictable offences.
Number two, as Professor Silver said, is to adopt reforms that allow the preliminary inquiry to be streamlined in appropriate cases without eliminating its appropriate discovery function. That's being mindful of some of the recommendations to amend section 537 of the Criminal Code to give preliminary inquiry judges more control and more power over the proceedings.
Number three is to study more substantial reforms that maintain the discovery function of the preliminary inquiry but offer flexibility, such as requiring permission for the court to hold a preliminary inquiry when it would be in the interests of justice to do so, or legislating for out-of-court discovery in cases where committal to stand trial is not an issue.
Thank you for having me. I look forward to your questions.