Let courts focus on important cases By: Editorial Posted: 7:00 PM CST Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018

Opinion

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This article was published 04/12/2018 (2468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There’s something wrong with Manitoba’s legal system when the overloaded court dockets include breaches of bail conditions that are relatively puny.

Perhaps it’s a person who missed her bus and therefore missed an appointment with her probation officer. Perhaps it’s someone who was spotted drinking beer despite the alcohol ban on his probation order. Perhaps it’s someone who communicated with a friend despite a no-contact order.

In some places, such minor violations are handled sensibly; probation officers and prosecutors have discretion to treat relatively trivial violations with relatively trivial consequences, freeing up resources to target the highest-risk offenders.

But Manitoba is infamous for its zero-tolerance policy on alleged court-order violations. This is the province where the weighty and expensive court system — judges, lawyers and support staff — gather to hear the case of a guy who was late coming home and missed his court-ordered curfew.

Unfortunately, such small violations are a big deal in a legal system that is clogged with cases. A total of 45 per cent of cases in Manitoba’s court system stem from such violations of court orders. It’s not immediately known how many are relatively minor, but the Manitoba total of violations is well above the national average, according to the court’s latest annual report.

The Manitoba tradition of overloading its justice system with violation-of-order charges is nothing new. A 2014 report by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said: “The situation in Manitoba also merits particular attention. In contrast to the discretion exercised by bail-supervision programs across the country, all interview participants from Winnipeg report there is zero tolerance towards any breach of conditions. Government officials confirm all breaches are automatically reported to the police, but were unable to explain the rationale for this policy or how long it has been in place. The result is that a single missed appointment after months of perfect attendance or one late arrival automatically leads to criminal charges.”

The ramifications of this no-flexibility stance are seen throughout the difference stages of the Manitoba legal system.

The Winnipeg Police Service laid 4,536 charges for violations of court orders in 2017, an average of 12 a day. Prosecuting such charges helps crowd the dockets in provincial court, where cases take an average of five months to resolve, according to the 2017-18 annual report from Manitoba Justice.

Most of the inmates at Winnipeg Remand Centre and Headingley jail are on remand, and remand inmates are there for an average of 54 days. Those institutions are crowded well over capacity to the point where jail violence has increased, according to correction officers.

Fortunately, the current Progressive Conservative government seems to recognize the problems that flow from Manitoba’s zero-tolerance policy on violations of court orders, a policy it says it inherited from its NDP predecessor.

On Nov. 19, Justice Minister Cliff Cullen launched a text-message notification program to remind Winnipeggers of their court dates. It’s a small step, but it’s in the right direction.

The government could also relax the current zero-tolerance policy and craft explicit policy that lets prosecutors and probation officers use discretion when people violate court orders. A possible model is B.C.’s Crown Policy Manual, which directs prosecutors to consider whether it’s in the public interest to prosecute an alleged violation of a court order.

For example, it means violators could continue to be charged when they present a risk of physical violence, such as domestic violence offenders.

But it would give probation officers and prosecutors the freedom to pursue more sensible alternatives when, for example, a person who has a solid track record of keeping her probation appointments oversleeps and misses a single appointment, but phones promptly to explain and apologize.

In replacing Manitoba’s zero-tolerance policy with a common-sense policy, a little wiggle room would go a long way.