4. The Right to Be Tried Within a Reasonable Delay

Court delays have become a chronic problem throughout the world, at the risk of endangering the right to be tried within a reasonable delay. It is not uncommon for defendants to wait months if not years to be tried, sometimes for minor offenses. In addition to defendants being in a limbo, society and victims are also at risk. The problem is made worse in cases where the accused, despite being presumed innocent, is detained without bail. Part of the issue is a financial and logistical one. Chronic under-funding of the judiciary, tough criminal law policies may all concur to create a perfect storm. Part of the problem may also be procedural with certain aspects of trial procedure, particularly in the adversarial tradition, being extremely time consuming. We will seek to evaluate the extent of the problem, look at emerging best practices both domestically, regionally and internationally, as well as try to look at possible remedies. In Canada, the Jordan ruling by the Supreme Court represents a radical and potentially destabilizing effort to drastically reduce delays by putting significant pressure on the Provinces to ensure that these are reduced, or risk certain cases being thrown out.

Further possible readings:

• • APPLYING AND SUPERVISING THE ECHR, The right to trial within a reasonable time and short-term reform of the European Court of Human Rights, Bled, Slovenia, 21-22 September 2009

  • Dakolias, Maria. Court performance around the world: a comparative perspective (World Bank Publications, 1999).

  • Krishnan, Jayanth K & C Raj Kumar. “Delay in process, denial of justice: the jurisprudence and empirics of speedy trials in comparative perspective” (2010) 42 Geo J Int’l L 747.

  • Dakolias, Maria. “Court Performance Around the World: A Comparative Perspective” (2014) 2:1 Yale Human Rights and Development Journal 2.

  • Doshi, Vidhi. “India’s long wait for justice: 27m court cases trapped in legal logjam”, The Guardian (5 May 2016).

  • Vega, Tanzina. “Court delays in the Bronx have defendants waiting years, suit claims”, (10 May 2016), online: CNNMoney <http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/news/bronx-court-lawsuit/index.html>.

• “Courting disaster? The long, long wait for justice in Ontario”, online: National Post <http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/courting-disaster-the-long-long-wait-for-justice-in-ontario>.

• The length of civil and criminal proceedings in the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, pages 33-70