New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Adrian Dix wants the B.C. government to fill court vacancies, use community courts more frequently and investigate whether more legal aid should be given to low income people who seek justice, he told Business in Vancouver January 9.
“What we’re seeing now is both the impact of extensive cuts in the system and backlogs in the system that have been going on for years,” he said.
“This past year there was a dramatic increase in stays of proceedings. Both criminal and youth court cases were essentially kicked and not proceeded with because they had taken too long. These were serious cases.”
Indeed, there were 109 such stays of proceedings in the first 51 weeks of 2011. That compares with 56 in 2010 and 44 in 2009.
Dix would not commit to raising legal aid. Instead, he said it is something that the Liberals should look at to make the province’s courts function more smoothly.
Glen Korstrom
@GlenKorstrom