Cancelling court erodes access to justice — just ask Matt Wiebe

Back in May 2023, when the NDP was in opposition and Matt Wiebe was just an earnest justice critic, he had harsh words for the Progressive Conservative government when provincial circuit court sessions were being cancelled.

At the time, Margaret Wiebe, who was the chief judge of the provincial court, issued a statement that said dozens of circuit court sittings in eight communities would be cancelled “to provide timely access to justice and ensure court resources are allocated in a manner that reflects the specific needs of all communities throughout the province of Manitoba.”

The provincial court was trying to become more efficient in processing lower-priority cases — ones that didn’t appear to be headed to court. The move was not necessarily due to a shortage of judges or staff.

Even so, the NDP opposition critic was incensed.

“Cancelling circuit court dates doesn’t increase access to justice, it does the opposite,” Matt Wiebe told the house during question period on May 30.

Fast forward to this week, and Wiebe — who is now Manitoba’s justice minister — has to answer questions about why Chief Judge Ryan Rolston was forced to cancel rural and other circuit court sittings because of a dire shortage of judges.

How did Wiebe the minister respond this time? By not really responding.

Rolston, quite rightly, went public with the notice of the cancellations and the reasons behind them. Since the legislature is not currently sitting, there was no chance for Wiebe to be grilled in question period. Free Press efforts to reach him for an interview Wednesday went unrewarded.

As is so often the case these days, Wiebe’s office issued a statement via email that was so divorced from the issue at hand, it begged questions about whether anyone in the minister’s office was aware of Rolston’s decision to cancel court sittings.

In the email, a spokesman for Wiebe said the minister meets regularly with the chief judge to “discuss ways we can support the courts.”

The statement also noted the province recently appointed an associate chief judge of reconciliation and promised to build a new circuit court at Opaskwayak Cree Nation. “We are also always working to reduce the strain on our courts and remove barriers to the justice system,” the statement said.

How can the government say it is always looking for ways to remove barriers to the justice system when provincial court is being forced to reduce sittings because of a shortage of judges?

Ministers or their spokespeople can say all these things because an email statement is a one-way communication that eliminates all annoying followup questions from reporters.

If the Free Press had been allowed to question the minister, a reporter may have quoted Wiebe’s past comments by pointing out that the cancellation of court sittings does not remove barriers to the justice system, it does the exact opposite.

It has been a distinctive feature of many governments of different political stripes to underfund the administration of justice even as they change laws that result in more people being charged and incarcerated.

There never seems to be enough money for court administration, corrections, legal aid or post-release supervision. When governments focus their attention on the justice system, it is almost always on the enforcement side: more police, more reasons to charge people, longer prison sentences.

When concerns arose about too many people being released on jail committing new crimes — which is, for the record, statistically untrue — the federal government responded with measures to make it more difficult to get bail. On the way to congratulate themselves, governments at all levels did very little to ensure the resources were in place to deal with greater numbers of incarcerated people.

Politicians get applause when they “get tough on crime,” but face stunned silence when they invest more resources to make the courts operate smoothly to ensure constitutional rights to a fair trial are upheld.

The fact that governments of different colours share this blind spot is what makes it incredibly frustrating for key people in the justice system. No matter how many times a chief judge or a Crown attorney or defence attorney raises questions about the administration of justice, the government of the day ignores them.

Case in point: Rolston also raised concerns two years ago about the critical shortage of court clerks and sheriff’s deputies that threatened to significantly delay proceedings.

To its credit, the NDP filled more than a dozen vacant clerk positions. The downside was that filling the vacancies only restored court administration to the bare minimum number of clerks needed to keep the wheels of justice turning at an appropriate pace.

The same policy seems to be at work with the judge vacancies. Rolston said he would need as many as five judges just to bring the provincial court back up to its minimum complement. To plan ahead to handle increasing court volume, the province would have to go beyond that number.

Unfortunately, Wiebe’s brief and estranged-from-reality email statement didn’t pledge to hire any additional judges.

It doesn’t really matter whether Wiebe makes a public pledge to hire more judges. He just needs to get it done.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca