Ontario’s busiest court has suspended all family trials, criminal trials and preliminary hearings amid a growing backlash from court staff and lawyers over its continued operation amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Unless an urgent criminal or family court appearance is required in the Ontario Court of Justice between Friday, March 20, 2020, and Friday, May 29, 2020, the court is urging individuals not to attend court,” court spokesperson James Schneider wrote in an email on behalf of Ontario Chief Justice Lise Maisonneuve.

Criminal and family courts will remain open for urgent matters and cases that are currently ongoing may continue with a judge’s order, Schneider wrote.

The Ontario Court of Justice deals with approximately 500,000 adult and youth criminal charges annually and handles millions of provincial offences.

The decision will put more pressure on the justice system which is already dealing with a backlog of cases; Ontario’s auditor general last year found the number of cases awaiting resolution had grown by 27 per cent to about 114,000 cases.

Friday’s announcement comes after key stakeholders, including representatives of defence lawyers and Crown attorneys, said it was unacceptable to continue to run bail courts and trials for accused in custody.

On Thursday, Legal Aid Ontario told its lawyers not to show up to court starting Friday and defence lawyers have also been told to stop volunteering their time. Some prosecutors also planned to walk off the job Friday at noon in solidarity.

Last week, the Superior Court of Justice announced it was suspending jury trials, with some exceptions. Meanwhile, some staff at the downtown courthouse are upset that are still expected to show up for work, sources said.

“We support our Chief Justices and our Justice system in this time of crisis and we will be available to work remotely,” said John Struthers, president of the Criminal Lawyers’ Association, which represents 1,500 Ontario lawyers.

“The world has failed to treat this pandemic with the seriousness and urgency required. We are grateful to Attorney General (Doug) Downey for taking this measure and all of us need to work together.”

In his email, Schneider wrote: “consistent with public health advice, all steps are being taken to reduce in-person appearances and to implement social distancing for matters that must proceed.”

The Ministry of the Attorney General is working with the court to implement significant audio and video technology capacity to further minimize in person contact for urgent matters that are proceeding, Schneider wrote.

Veteran Toronto defence lawyer Marcy Segal, who also practices family and civil litigation, predicts prosecutors — working remotely — will immediately start prioritizing which matters should proceed once the courts get back to normal.

She expects some minor drug and property cases will be withdrawn, but not impaired driving charges, for instance.

And no should anyone assume a case will automatically be tossed if the delay pushes past the 18-month time limit — the Supreme Court of Canada’s presumptive ceiling on the amount of time for a provincial case to be heard, Segal said. The Crown will be able to argue why the case took so long and why it should proceed.

Segal, who was in the Newmarket courthouse on Friday, said she was blown away at the level of co-operation by all parties — including Judge Mary Misener, prosecutors, duty counsel, and clerks — as they raced to deal with the matters left on the docket.

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“To the people outside it would have looked like a conveyer belt,” Segal said.

“But I was humbled everybody in there was so interested in helping to get these people through the system. The guard sat beside people in custody, the clerks were right on top of these people, and not one person complained. I was proud today to be part of that and to witness how generous they were in their spirit and time and if they were afraid they weren’t showing it.”