Most people are aware of the colloquial “right to a speedy trial.” This is included in the Canadian Charter under Section 11(b) which states ‘any person charged with an offence has the right: to be tried within a reasonable time.’
A ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2016, in the case, called R v. Jordan, guarantees everyone has the right to a trial in a reasonable time.
This gives trials a time limit of 30 months in the Superior courts, and Provincial courts at 18 months. Traffic court falls under provincial jurisdiction.
In cases where a trial exceeds 18 months, you can make an application stating that your rights have been violated, and potentially have the case against you dropped.
Recently there was a case here in BC, where a woman tried to argue that her right to a trial within a reasonable time was violated.
The craziest thing about this case was that she was arguing this even though her traffic court date happened only 95 days after she was issued the ticket.
Even the judicial justice at the original trial was confused by this argument, but since she was only a judicial justice, she was not able to hear the constitutional matter.
Because of this, the case had to be adjourned.
After the woman decided to continue with a constitutional challenge, it was her responsibility to give notice of this to the Crown. The trial kept getting delayed because there was a lot of confusion on her end on how to go about the process, and throughout much of the process, she lacked legal aid.
When it was finally heard before a Judge, it was 17 months after the date of issue, so at this point, it was still under the 18-month time limit
The Judge who heard the case decided that since traffic court is not as serious as other courts, such as a criminal trial, it should not be held to the same standard of an 18-month time period to get to court. The Judge found the ceiling should be only 14-months for traffic ticket trials.
Because of this decision, the woman’s ticket was thrown out.
Due to the fact that traffic court trials vary in length and take be anywhere from 15-45 minutes for most traffic tickets, or days at a time in cases where there was a serious accident, it is ultimately up to the discretion of the judge and what they see as a reasonable time to trial.
The Crown did not approve of this decision and appealed it. The BC Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Crown and ultimately found that the timeline of a speedy trial would still be 18 months, as the overall system has to be uniform.
They also noted that it is not necessarily true that traffic cases are simpler, and it ultimately depends on the type of ticket on trial.
The main thing to take away from this trial is that the idea of an 18-month timeline doesn’t mean that if your trial goes over that time, you automatically win your case.
All that changes, depending on if you’re under or over the timeline, is whose burden it is to argue the delay. This means that if the trial is beyond 18-months, it is up to the Crown to argue why the delay is reasonable.
This case shows that it is always ultimately up to the judge to decide on whether a case has been seen within a reasonable time period or not. It also shows the importance of contacting a lawyer who is knowledgeable in traffic court, and whether or not arguing that your case was not seen in a reasonable time is actually a good idea to pursue or not.
