COURTS & JUSTICE SYSTEM...LACKING IN ...JUSTICE, COMMON SENSE?

The following article titled "Court backlog growing and courtrooms sit empty for hours every day:auditor", was published on December 5, 2019 in the Waterloo Region Record. Seventy-One percent of inmates in the provincial adult correctional facilities are there on remand, which means that they haven't been convicted or sentenced. 71% ! Backlog anyone? In 2004-2005 it was at 60%. Apparently they do not have a handle on that issue as it is increasing.

"Courtrooms across the province are in operation for an average of just 2.8 hours a day, the auditor found, well below the ministry's optimal average of 4.5 hours." Currently across Ontario there are 114,000 criminal cases awaiting resolution.

Unmentioned in this report by the Auditor General is the overall quality of justice handed out. No mention is made of wrongful convictions, prosecutorial misconduct etc. We would all like to hope that wrongful convictions are a tiny proportion of total convictions however when the system appears to screw up even the big ticket items such as murder then we have to ask if they can make errors there then how easy is it to mess up the smaller ticket items such as robbery, break and enter, assault etc.