Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. This is my third appearance before this committee, and it's an honour to be back again today. My colleague and I are here from the left coast and the right coast—I'll leave it to you to decide which is the left and which is the right. We know a lot less about what happens in the middle.
I want to start by saying that we echo and support the comments you have already heard. The strength of our agreement as defence counsel shows what we've learned from many years of experience. Combined, my colleague and I have over 44 years of experience. I myself have conducted over 500 trials, of which more than 50 have been murder cases. I've conducted preliminary inquiries when necessary.
I want to start by also saying we're here today to talk about the preliminary inquiry, but there are other parts of this bill that we have significant concerns with. I will just say, as an aside, that the abolition of peremptory challenges is a huge mistake. I've selected over 100 juries, and I've never seen it misused. It's necessary.
Let's go back to preliminary inquiries. I'm convinced they're an essential tool for an efficient, fair and reliable justice system. I also have seen no data that in any way suggests a justification for their abolition. In fact, the bill itself is inconsistent because it preserves preliminary inquiries for offences where there's a potential for life imprisonment, but that's also arbitrary—in the case of robbery, for example. Abolishing preliminary inquiries is short-sighted and will lead to far greater problems than many will anticipate.
I'll give you an example. I was counsel for an accused charged with historical sex offences. There were five complainants. The offences dated back to 1959, covering a time period to 1992. We elected trial by Supreme Court judge alone, and requested a preliminary inquiry. One was scheduled. Shortly before the preliminary inquiry was due to start, Crown counsel preferred an indictment and we went straight to the Supreme Court.
The trial took over two years to complete. Why? Unbeknownst to either the Crown or the defence, there were a number of section 276 issues—that is, prior sexual history—as well as at least two, maybe three, third party records applications. You can imagine that in historical sexual offence cases, you're very likely to have applications related to third party records. There was also a severance application. We were successful on all of those applications. In other words, they all had merit. They led to the trial having to be adjourned three or four times.
Of course, rescheduling a trial that's been adjourned is very difficult. It's also, ironically, very inconvenient for complainants. They start their testimony; they've started a cross-examination; evidence comes to light that requires a section 276 ruling; we have to adjourn, and then they have to come back.
In my respectful submission to you, they should not and must not be abolished. They need to be improved. For example, provincial court judges at a preliminary inquiry have almost no powers. The test for committal is very low. We need to give judges at preliminary inquiries more powers, such as the jurisdiction to order disclosure. It's often self-evident to everybody in the courtroom that the defence is entitled to this disclosure, but we have to wait till we get to the Supreme Court for an order to receive it. Judges need the power to hear third party record applications and to rule on prior sexual history.
In other words, we should give them the powers to adjudicate on matters prior to getting to the Supreme Court for trial. Let's utilize the preliminary inquiry to make sure that when we get to trial in the Supreme Court, the trial occurs efficiently, without interruption and without unnecessary motions.
It's the lack of power in the “preliminary inquiry justice”, as it's defined in the code, that gives rise to concerns that in some cases they seem to be a waste of time.
We need to make them better, not abolish them.
Thank you.