Courts getting back to business

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This article was published 28/06/2021 (1705 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After a months-long pandemic slowdown, Manitoba’s busiest court division is getting back to business.

Beginning Monday, provincial court locations across Manitoba will resume hearing a full slate of trials, sentencings, inquests and other proceedings.

“I think it’s safe to say most defence counsel are pretty happy to try to get things moving again,” said Criminal Defence Lawyers Association of Manitoba president Gerri Wiebe.

The resumption of proceedings comes at the same time the provincial government has moved Manitoba’s pandemic response from code red to code orange and relaxed several key restrictions, including those prohibiting working out at a gym, worshipping in church and sharing a meal at a restaurant or patio.

While many court services are ramping up, the number of people allowed to attend locations will remain restricted, according to a notice to the legal profession posted online last week and signed by provincial court Chief Judge Margaret Wiebe.

“The fundamental principles underlying the re-opening are to minimize the number of people who are attending court in person to those whose charges are proceeding in a substantive way,” says the notice. “It is important all court participants continue to abide by the fundamentals of wearing masks, practicing social distancing and minimizing contacts.”

Most circuit court locations, some of which haven’t had a physical sitting in their community on over a year, will begin hearing trials and sentencings again, either in person or remotely.

In most cases, an accused person will still not attend court in person unless their matter is going to trial or sentencing.

“In a case where custody is being sought, the accused and counsel can appear in person, but the court continues to encourage counsel to consider and request the matter proceed with all or some of the parties appearing remotely,” says the notice, with the “preferred platform” being video-conferencing, where available.

As has been the case for more than a year, court proceedings remain closed to the general public, with witnesses or an accused allowed a maximum of two support people to attend with them.

The courts have largely accommodated hearings for in-custody accuseds during the pandemic, but hearings for those who are out of custody have been routinely delayed and adjourned, with defence lawyers often assuming the burden of ensuring safety protocols when they do proceed, Gerri Wiebe said.

While many courtrooms have been made video-conference ready, many accused people before the court don’t even have a phone, let alone a computer with video capability, Wiebe said.

“You wind up with a situation where defence counsel has been put in a position of either bringing clients into our offices in order to let them use our computers and sit with us or prolong it longer, which is a difficult choice to make,” Wiebe said.

“Either we tell them we can’t do that for them and protect ourselves and our staff, or we bring them in to the office and potentially put ourselves and our staffs at risk (of contracting COVID-19),” she said.

Before the pandemic, it would have been “unfathomable” to consider sentencing someone to jail if they weren’t present in court or already in custody, Wiebe said.

“I’m hearing of dispositions occurring by telephone, with instructions that the accused attend to the Remand Centre to start serving their sentence at a particular time,” she said.

“Necessity breeds innovation, so a whole lot of things that I never would have contemplated as being possible are being done right now in order to move things along.”

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca