THUNDER BAY - Despite trials and preliminary hearings resuming across the province starting in July, not all courthouses are included in the ministry’s first phase of reopening.
The announcement from the Ministry of the Attorney General came on June 17 and was posted to the Ontario Courts website announcing plans to reopen a limited number of courtrooms across the province in the first phase of reopening to be implemented on July 6.
In the northwest, the Thunder Bay Courthouse is the only site included in the first phase.
Courthouses west of the city including Kenora and Fort Frances are not part of the first phase of reopening.
As a result, Dryden-based lawyer, Karen Seeley, says this poses challenges for individuals dealing with criminal and family matters in communities outside of Thunder Bay in northwestern Ontario.
“There are significant challenges and at the end of the day you don’t have access to justice if you don’t have the right to be found not guilty of the matters you are facing,” she said. “Particularly true for those in custody awaiting trial because they don’t have viable bail plans or they have been detained.”
Since March 17, both the Ontario Court of Justice and Superior Court temporarily suspended or halted non-urgent matters to reduce the number of people attending courthouses for criminal, family and provincial offence matters.
However, court has still been in session to hear urgent in-custody matters including bail hearings and guilty pleas by video and teleconference.
In the notice from the ministry posted last week, courtrooms will be retrofitted in order to protect all court users once in-person proceedings resume.
Seeley suggested that at least one courtroom in every courthouse throughout the province should be included in the first phase to provide everybody with equal access to justice across the province.
“Access to justice should not only be available to those that live in major centres and who as a result were prioritized for retrofitting,” Seeley said. “Rather than deciding to retrofit courtrooms based on the size of the courthouse or geography, the government should have and needs do this to at least one courtroom in every courthouse across the province.”
Courthouses in Kenora and Fort Frances are not expected to open until Sept. 15, says Seeley, which she describes as “inexcusable”.
“September 15 is not timely, it is three months after Toronto’s courts will open,” she said.
In April, the Ministry of the Solicitor General implemented safety and health measures in order to reduce inmate populations across all Ontario correctional institutions in order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
Some of these measures included longer-term temporary absences to allow the early release of inmates who were near their sentences.
Earlier this month, the Kenora Jail was at approximately 90 per cent of its capacity, according to a spokesperson with the ministry.
Seeley says a large portion of those in custody in Kenora are on remand, meaning they are not serving their sentence but waiting for their case to be tried.
“It’s very difficult because these people are in a very old institution without access to any services or support,” she said. “Very little is occurring during COVID-19, they don’t have a right to a trial at this point.”
The ministry says they will continue to expand with additional courthouses and courtrooms with a targeted completion date of Nov. 1.
