Article content

The Alberta government is failing to take criminal justice backlogs seriously in light of new information suggesting that hundreds of cases could be dismissed due to delays, says Wildrose Leader Brian Jean.

“The major thing is to allocate enough resources to immediately get enough Crown prosecutors and judges in place to respond to this,” Jean said last week. “We have a lot of lawyers who don’t have work … They would love to supplement their income with Crown prosecutor work.”

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Alberta government failing to address justice system backlogs, says Wildrose Back to video

Information from Alberta Justice showed more than 1,400 cases could be at risk of being thrown out for lagging trials — including 209 Court of Queen’s Bench cases involving serious and violent crimes.

The 2016 Jordan decision from the Supreme Court of Canada imposed limits for when a trial should begin after charges have been laid. For the Court of Queen’s Bench, that ceiling is 30 months, while provincial court cases have an 18-month benchmark. A “Jordan application” can be made by the accused after the deadline to have the case tossed.