I don't want to get ahead of myself on this, because we have other provisions.... We have amendments coming up that would take away the requirement contained in Bill C-40 that the applicant appeal a decision. This is why clause 2 is important.
Someone is convicted of an offence. They've gone before a judge and they've been found guilty and convicted. They're left with a possible decision at that point, in consultation with their lawyer, on whether to appeal their decision or apply under the provisions of Bill C-40 to the commission for a hearing on whether they meet the threshold of wrongful conviction or miscarriage of justice. The threshold that we contemplate setting is that “a miscarriage of justice may have occurred”. These decisions will have to be made by individuals.
Under the current Bill C-40, as presented, there would be no decision. You can't avail yourself of the commission unless you've appealed the decision. How do we reconcile this shift—or does it have to be reconciled?—if we make a subsequent amendment that removes the requirement to appeal?
We hear evidence all the time about delays in the justice system. We have Jordan's principle. We're taking court of appeal time, potentially, to deal with these miscarriage of justice cases. All the evidence we've seen so far is that the applications are going to go up. Some of the evidence we've seen is that our applications are going to skyrocket.
I don't know that Canadians believe there should be a skyrocketing in the number of people alleging that they were wrongfully convicted, but how do we reconcile...? It's not fair to you, really, because we haven't dealt with that clause yet, but there's an interplay between the two. The court of appeal is going to be in a position to have the hearing on release when someone has made application to the commission. Also, it could be that the decision is appealed to the court.
How does the interplay work on that? What if someone goes with a wrongful conviction application and then decides to appeal their decision? Again, I don't want to get ahead of myself, because we haven't dealt with that clause yet, but given that one of the amendments came from the Liberals, the government, and one of the amendments came from the NDP, I have a feeling this bill is going to be substantially changed, possibly removing the requirement that someone appeal their decision. How do those two interact, if that should happen?