The province’s Legal Aid lawyers will not be going to court until further notice due to unsafe work conditions, according to an email sent Thursday evening by the head of Legal Aid Ontario.

“This difficult decision has been made because LAO is unable to confirm that courthouses are undergoing proper cleaning and sanitization,” according to the email from David Field.

Legal Aid lawyers are posted in courthouses across the province to conduct bail hearings and provide free legal assistance to low-income accused persons. As of this week, Ontario courts have reduced operations to run bail courts and trials for accused who are in custody. Efforts have been made to conduct many bail hearings by video and in some cases audio, however, in-person hearings, often for recently arrested accused, continue.

Earlier on Thursday, Legal Aid staff lawyers were told by Legal Aid Ontario not to come to work at the College Park courthouse in downtown Toronto after complaints about sanitation and screening measures. Private lawyers paid by Legal Aid Ontario to act as duty counsel continued to provide services on Thursday but that will stop Friday, according to the email from Field.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of the Attorney General said, “enhanced cleaning” of key areas in courthouses began Thursday morning and will continue three times a day for the foreseeable future.

It has also been providing hand sanitizer to the courts, a spokesperson said.

The Criminal Lawyer’s Association will also stop providing volunteer lawyers in court on Friday, and is calling for an organized shutdown on in-person court appearances as it advocates for Ontario courts to work remotely.

“We have called repeatedly for the reduction of the courts to the base minimum and a remote system to be put in place and we asked that ten days ago and governments don’t work as fast as we would like,” John Struthers, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, said Thursday early evening.

A near shutdown of all the courts is needed to protect the “health and well-being of the court reporters, and the clerks, and the judges and the staff and crown attorneys who need a voice because they are going to court every day and putting their face on the line,” he said. “We can put a bookmark on this and come back in three weeks, there’s nothing more important than people’s health.”

In an interview, Daniel Lerner, a lawyer who has been working as a duty counsel at College Park, said he was left extremely concerned Wednesday after two recently arrested people showing symptoms of COVID-19 were brought to the courthouse for a bail hearing. The accused had been charged with property offences and were released on a bail with no money required.

Lerner said the man was sweating, had a fever, had difficulty breathing and was coughing. He also said he’d been near people in isolation for COVID-19, Lerner said. The man was provided with a mask, but his co-accused was not, Lerner said.

Rather than being brought up into the courtroom, the two people instead appeared in court from a video suite in the courthouse cells. Lerner said the video suite was set to be used again for healthy prisoners prior to being disinfected before concerns were raised.

After they were bailed, the two people were released into the courthouse “with no directions or instructions about what they are supposed to do,” Lerner said.

They obtained their property, waited outside the clerk’s window for paperwork and took a public elevator to leave, with no precautions taken, Lerner said.

Lerner said the handling of the accused posed a risk not only to sureties, court staff and the public at the courthouse, but also elevated the potential for a devastating outbreak in the province’s jails.

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Dana Fisher, the union representative for duty counsel in Ontario, said concerns about cleaning, a lack of hand sanitizer and inadequate social distancing are coming in from courthouses across the province.

She said she is concerned that entire courthouses will end up being shut down in the future because the safety measures in place now are not strict enough.

Fisher said that in addition to sanitizing and cleaning there has to be a much bigger shift to working remotely and an evaluation of which cases really require a bail hearing and sureties.

“We are operating in very different times,” she said. “But we are still saying bring your family and loved ones into the court building.”

In an email, a Legal Aid Ontario spokesperson said they will continue to find ways to support clients and work with the courts and the Ministry of the Attorney General on “virtual courts.”