OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada says the length of time a judge takes to deliberate and issue a verdict in a criminal trial is not included in the time limits the high court set to protect an accused from unreasonable delays in having a case heard.
The judges are unanimous in their finding that the right to be tried in a reasonable time includes a judge’s deliberation period.
However they also all agree that the judge’s time wrestling with a decision is not part of the time periods set for trials to be heard in a landmark 2016 ruling known as the Jordan decision.
The Jordan decision says the time from charges being laid until the end of a trial should rarely be more than 18 months for cases heard in provincial courts and 30 months for cases heard in superior courts.
Today’s decision dismisses an appeal from a Manitoba man convicted in 2016 of sexual assault and interference with his young stepdaughter.
The man, known only as K.G.K. to protect the identity of the victim, argued the nine months it took a trial judge to deliberate before convicting K.G.K. in October 2016 was unreasonable.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2020.
The Canadian Press
The Canadian Press
