A cramped waiting room leading into Milton’s busiest courtroom is no place for privacy, but it’s where a mental health court support worker finds herself quietly discussing a sensitive case file within earshot of dozens of people.
The lack of available office space, complicated security logistics and overall lack of privacy in the aging courthouse — originally erected in 1960 with an addition built in the late 1970s — continue to burden the efficiency of Halton Region’s justice system, despite the Ministry of the Attorney General’s knowledge of the problem.
“It’s just a completely inadequate facility – it’s tired, it’s rundown,” said lawyer Paul Stunt, who spent almost a decade as the assistant Crown attorney before later becoming the lead Crown attorney in Halton.
The Milton courthouse on Steeles Avenue East is home to Halton’s Superior and Ontario courts and receives thousands of criminal, family, civil and youth criminal cases each year.
Provincial offences courts in Burlington on Plains Road East, and in Milton on Nipissing Road, also serve the region.
This reporter toured the Milton courthouse on Monday and was witness to much of what is described in this story.
On any given day it’s not unusual to see lawyers and clients in the Milton courthouse crammed into makeshift meeting rooms that were once closets, or inmates being escorted down corridors past witnesses or even jurors.
“When you have a major criminal jury trial you might have 120 to 150 prospective jurors and there’s no place for them to go,” Stunt said. “They will sit in the public hallway and they will see prisoners being traipsed around in shackles – they should never see that.”
One of the elevators in the courthouse even works double duty, transporting prisoners from their holding cells in the basement to courtrooms, while also regularly used by judges when it’s available.
“The police tell me there’s all kinds of security issues in the holding area and with respect to the movement of prisoners, and judges throughout the building,” Stunt said.
The Oakville persecutor has practised criminal law for more than 35 years, joining O’Connor MacLeod Hanna LLP in the early 1990s.
For the past two years, Stunt, along with other lawyers in the region and members of the judiciary, have actively lobbied for a new provincial courthouse in Halton.
A Town Hall meeting convened by Stunt and members of the Halton County Law Association in September 2014 was widely attended by provincial and municipal politicians, Halton Police Chief Stephen Tanner, members of the judiciary and other lawyers who work in the Region.
“We’ve gotten used to it but it’s unacceptable,” Stunt said. “In metropolitan areas this is the worst (courthouse) I go to. It’s disgraceful. I can’t think of any one that’s worse than ours.”
The Ministry said Attorney General Madeleine Meilleur was not available for an interview for this story. A list of questions was submitted to a spokesperson but insidehalton.com received no response.
In the basement of the Milton courthouse is another storage room that’s now used by vulnerable witnesses, often youth, when testifying through closed circuit television monitors.
Stunt said these spaces, or the Halton police offices, which are also in the basement and lack windows or proper ventilation, were never meant for this purpose.
“The building is jam crowded,” Stunt said. “There’s no space that hasn’t been used for something. It is old, it’s tired, and it’s out of date.
Around the corner is a secure area where lawyers can meet with incarcerated clients in a dingy holding cell area that lacks any sort of privacy when trying to discuss legal matters.
“There’s no sound partitions,” Stunt said. “There’s absolutely no possibility of a private discussion with a person in custody.”
Most lawyers, or others such as Canadian Mental Health Association court support workers are often forced to discuss confidential matters out in the open.
Even the Family Law Information Centre had to see people at a table in a second floor hallway until a more suitable office space was made available last year.
“It’s absolutely imperative that I be able to consult with my client in private, with witnesses in private, not in a public corridor, not in a room where there could be 32 people sitting around listening to every word you say,” Stunt said
In the third floor courtroom frequently reserved for sexual assault or murder cases, the placement of a prisoner’s box often makes jurors feel “uncomfortable.”
“The jurors have to walk right past the front of that prisoner’s box to get to the jury box,” he said. “I’ve seen cases where jurors actually will take a wide berth so they don’t have to get close to the prisoner’s box.”
Stunt said in other cases police officers will stand in front of the prisoner’s box.
“That sent a pretty bad message to the jury that the person here is dangerous, and that shouldn’t happen either,” Stunt said.
Local MPPs have toured the run-down Milton courthouse, expressing their support for the building of a new facility with Halton’s population of 518,311 forecast to grow by another 20 per cent by 2021.
Oakville MPP Kevin Flynn, who’s spoken with Meilleur as well as her predecessor about the matter, said the lack of privacy was an issue for him during the courthouse visit.
“The overriding concern I would have is a lack of appropriate privacy for justice issues,” he said. “There appears to be a lot of business being done in the halls.”
On Dec. 2, 2014 the same MPPs met with representatives from the Ministry of the Attorney General, at the request of Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott, and all agreed that a new courthouse was needed.
“The major improvement from my point-of-view would be having both courts (Burlington and Milton) on the same site,” Flynn said.
At that December meeting between MPPs, however, no mention was made of a major infrastructure investment for Peel Region to be announced the following month.
Stunt said he was therefore “stunned” in early January when the Province announced a six-floor, “state-of-the-art” addition to A. Grenville and William Davis Courthouse in Brampton.
“I get that you need to plan for the future but we desperately need space now and they’re giving them four floors that aren’t going to be used for years,” Stunt said.
While construction is underway, the Ministry of the Attorney General said it would be left up to Milton, Orangeville and Kitchener “to deal with the added pressures.”
“The upgrade to Brampton obviously is a much lower budget figure than a replacement (building) in Halton, but the Attorney General’s office knows something needs to be done in Halton,” Flynn said.
But Stunt said Halton’s judicial resources are already straining under heavy workload, and judges could soon start hearing more requests to throw out cases because of a Canadian Charter right protecting against unreasonable delays.
“We’re at the point now where getting a case to trial is way too long,” Stunt said.
On Jan. 15, Halton Justice Alan. D Cooper dismissed a pair of dangerous driving charges resulting from an incident in Burlington citing unreasonable delays in the justice system.
Cooper told the court that without more resources and personnel there would be “more and cases will likely be the subject of unreasonable delay applications.
“Halton is becoming one of the lost children of the Ontario judicial system. For some reason, its obvious needs have been overlooked,” Cooper said. “There has been no increase in the number of judges on our court since my appointment in 2004.”
Cooper described the Burlington court as not looking like a “traditional” courthouse because of its location in “an aging strip mall-like location” on Plains Road East.
Similarly in 2012, Justin Stephen Brown stayed charges against a man accused of impaired driving because unreasonable delays over 15 months caused “financial and emotional prejudice.”
The Ontario judge said that because of Halton’s “explosive growth” there was a risk of “slipping further into a crisis situation” if more resources weren’t committed.
Stunt explains that even Internet access is hard to come by in many areas of the courthouse and has affected how lawyers do their jobs.
“In the courtrooms, there is very little opportunity for Internet access,” Stunt said. “Normally, in other buildings, right in the middle of a trial you can just be pulling up cases and precedents – here you can’t do it.”
Stunt said he and many of his colleagues agree with Flynn that Milton’s courthouse is past the point of expansion and should be amalgamated with the Burlington court in a new location.
“This courthouse doesn’t have to be here, in fact, most of us would say it should be moved to a more central location.” Stunt said, noting the lack of municipal transit service from Oakville and Burlington to Milton.
Flynn said he’s strongly advocating within government to ensure a new Halton courthouse is a top priority each budget cycle.
“I think if we had one centralized court it would be a lot more effective, and a lot more efficient and could probably here more cases, more quickly,” Flynn said.
“What we’re hoping is that the next central courthouse that’s built in the Province of Ontario is in Halton.”
Detail Link :
http://www.insidehalton.com/news-story/5271896-milton-courthouse-inadequate-tired-rundown-says-former-crown-attorney/