The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday clarified how the justice system should handle delays after a person is convicted of a crime but before they are sentenced, ruling that such situations must be considered on a case-by-case basis.
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situations → clarify → basis
Friday’s judgment, called R.B.-C., involved a conviction for sexual assault where it took more than a year to deliver the sentence.
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it → call → sentence
The unanimous court took a relatively narrow approach to answer specific questions in the R.B.-C. appeal.
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court → take → appeal
The case intersected with major legal issues: the protection in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to be tried within a reasonable time when charged with a crime, and what happens when that right is violated.
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right → intersect → crime
Such questions are usually focused on the process of a criminal trial.
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questions → focus → trial
The Supreme Court a decade ago, in the landmark Jordan ruling, set strict deadlines for trials to be completed, from charge to conviction.
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trials → set → conviction
If there’s an unreasonable delay that violates the Charter, a Supreme Court precedent from 1987 called Rahey means that the only outcome is a stay of proceedings.
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outcome → ’ → proceedings
The accused is freed without a verdict.
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accused → accuse → verdict
Delays plague Canada’s justice system.
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Delays → plague → system
Parliament and the Supreme Court in recent months have wrestled with the challenge.
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Parliament → wrestle → challenge
The Supreme Court earlier this year said it might reconsider its Rahey precedent.
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it → say → precedent
Friday’s R.B.-C. judgment zeroed in on delays between conviction and sentencing.
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judgment → zero → conviction
It was written by Justice Sheilah Martin in her final months of work as she retires this year.
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she → write → work
If there is a Charter violation of unreasonable delay after conviction, the top court said the remedy in most cases is a reduction in the sentence levied on the offender.
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remedy → be → offender
The court noted that it had not previously provided such precise guidance.
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it → note → guidance
The court further said that delays after conviction should not be measured against a strict deadline, the way Jordan is used to consider trial delays.
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Jordan → say → delays
The key difference between the two phases is a person at trial is presumed innocent.
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person → presume → trial
In the R.B.-C. case, a man studying for his PhD at a university in Ontario assaulted his new girlfriend one evening in 2019.
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man → study → 2019
The Ontario Court of Justice convicted him in 2021, but it took more than a year to render the punishment: a conditional sentence of two years less a day.
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it → convict → years
The man asked the Ontario Court of Justice for a stay of the proceedings because of unreasonable delay.
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man → ask → delay
The court said no.
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court → say → ?
But the Ontario Court of Appeal in 2024 ruled that there was an unreasonable delay.
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Court → rule → 2024
Both courts were working with a rule applicable only in Ontario, a five-month deadline to deliver a sentence after conviction.
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courts → work → conviction
The Ontario appeal court reduced his conditional sentence by four months.
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court → reduce → months
At the Supreme Court, the man, R.B.-C., once more sought a complete stay of the proceedings – which would wipe out his conviction.
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which → seek → conviction
On Friday, the top court said no.
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court → say → Friday
The Supreme Court agreed that there was an unreasonable delay in his sentencing, engaging the Charter of Rights.
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Court → agree → Rights
The top court also agreed with the Ontario appeal court’s move to reduce the conditional sentence by four months.
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court → agree → months
The Supreme Court, however, rejected the idea of a five-month deadline between conviction and sentencing.
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Court → reject → conviction
Justice Martin, invoking the central rationale of the Jordan ruling, said trial deadlines were established to address a “proven culture of complacency in bringing accused persons to trial.”
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deadlines → invoke → trial
On delays between conviction and sentencing, she said strict deadlines didn’t make sense because “no comparable evidentiary foundation has been established.”
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foundation → say → sense
Lawyers for R.B.-C. on Friday said they were disappointed that the Supreme Court will allow sentencing proceedings to continue “even after they have become unconstitutional” because of unreasonable delay.
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they → say → delay
“Courts, more than any other institution, should respect constitutional rights,” said lawyers Arash Ghiassi and Julia Kirby of Savards LLP in a statement.
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Ghiassi → respect → statement
They said that allowing cases to drag on beyond the point of unreasonable delay “will not fix the system.”
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cases → say → system
They also said Friday’s ruling means that R.B.-C., an Iranian, may be deported back to Iran because of his conviction and his immigration status.
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R.B.-C. → say → conviction
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, an intervener in the case, on Friday said sentence reductions are not a meaningful remedy for a violation of the Charter right on delay.
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reductions → say → delay
The advocacy group added that the vagueness of the remedy does not “provide the clarity necessary” to push the justice system to render sentences in a timely manner.
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vagueness → add → manner
Beyond the R.B.-C. case itself, the broader question of how the Supreme Court may grapple with the issue of cases stayed because of unreasonable trial delays is not yet answered.
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Court → grapple → delays
In May, in another Jordan-related ruling, Chief Justice Richard Wagner said the court might reconsider its Rahey precedent, which dictates that a stay is the only remedy for an unreasonable trial delay.
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stay → relate → delay
“It may be that the time is near at hand when Rahey should be revisited,” the Chief Justice wrote.
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Justice → revisit → hand
