By Greg Nikkel
City officials, lawyers, Chamber members and police administrators held meetings on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to address concerns around the loss of Queen’s Bench court and the sheriff from the Weyburn Court House.
The meeting on Wednesday was with Justice Minister and Attorney-General Gord Wyant, department officials and Weyburn-Big Muddy MLA Dustin Duncan, and on Thursday, the NDP’s Justice critic, MLA Nicole Sarauer was in attendance to hear the concerns.
At issue is the government’s decision to move all operations for Court of Queen’s Bench to Estevan, along with the sheriff’s office, leaving only provincial court to run one day a week, with the changes to take effect on Jan. 1, 2017.
The government expects to save about $108,000 with the move, but the impact will be widely felt in the community, as the minister heard from city lawyers, the Weyburn Police Service and the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce.
Among the concerns expressed is how this will reduce the access to justice that Weyburn and area residents will now have as a result of the cuts in services, particularly those people who decide to represent themselves because they can’t afford a lawyer, but are also not eligible to receive Legal Aid.
Lawyer Mike Weger, a former president of the Southeast Bar Association, said they will continue to bring concerns and problems to the attention of the Justice department, including how the Court House is only open one day a week, and those wanting to pay fines are unable to do so. Lawyers have seen an impact with fewer staff available and with all the files now down in Estevan, creating many difficulties in filing documents or obtaining files.
“Right now, chambers are set for a whole year in advance,” Weger noted, and said if a judge has to come in to Weyburn just to hear a single matter in chambers, “that’s a poor use of resources.”
He said it would just take a simple order to restore the clerks to the Weyburn court. “As swiftly as they brought the change about, they could bring it back with an administratrive notice. That’s how they made the original notice,” said Weger, adding he wasn’t hearing any room for meeting halfway in terms of services.
“There’s not much room for compromise. You either have Queen’s Bench service or you don’t, and you can try to soften the blow a little bit, but it doesn’t change the fact there will be no Queen’s Bench service in the court house,” said Weger.
When asked if the services might be restored in Weyburn, minister Wyant said, “I don’t think we’re looking at bringing the staff back.”
He added that department officials will have discussions about what options might be available to mitigate the impact locally, and they will make sure that pretrial conferences and settlements can still occur here.
On the issue of holding chambers for Queen’s Bench here, Wyant said he will be sitting down with the Chief Justice of Saskatchewan to discuss this, to see whether chambers can still be held in Weyburn.
Duncan said the concerns that were brought forward were ones he had passed on to the ministry before, and hopes the department will work to find solutions to the difficulties which were raised with the minister.
“I think the discussions will be carrying on into the new year,” said the MLA. “I think this was an opportunity for the minister to hear first-hand some of the concerns.”
Police Chief Marlo Pritchard said their concerns were around the impact to the provincial court side of operations by the removal of court clerks from the Weyburn court house.
“We wanted to make sure the impact doesn’t change our ability to police. When they moved QB, they also impacted provincial court,” he said.
Mayor Marcel Roy said he was told through an assistant deputy minister that the ministry may be looking at using some websites to enable access to justice for less serious matters, such as traffic tickets, and the use of the court house for functions like paying traffic fines was called “antiquated” when most everything can be done on-line.
Mayor Roy said they would be setting up “access to justice centres” with computer stations, but noted that the ministry officials said they wouldn’t be hiring staff to man the centre, but would use volunteers or lawyers working “pro bono”.
At the meeting on Thursday with MLA Sarauer, she told the gathered group that she has been closely following this story, and have been active in making comments about the issues, like access to justice.
“With the amount of money put into renovating it, the pittance of money that it’s going to save” hardly compares, she said, noting she practised law for seven years before she was elected to the riding of Regina Douglas Park, and knows what impact the lack of access to justice has on people.
As for the computer stations for access to justice, Sarauer noted the ministry has been talking about this for the past four years, but were looking at having it in a centre like Saskatoon.
Lawyer Norma Buydens said the big impact she is seeing is in relation to family law, and Weyburn losing its Legal Aid office has not helped this situation at all.
“There’s a vast number of people who have to go self-rep. When this first came out, I was frankly appalled, because our MLA said there’s nothing much happening in Weyburn,” she said, as the number of trials was mentioned as a reason to cut the Queen’s Bench court.
“In family law, a huge amount of work gets done in chambers and in pretrial conferences,” she said, noting that when people represent themselves, the judges get frustrated because people who have no knowledge of the law try to bring their issues to court, and need help.
Coun. Dick Michel asked if it would make a difference if Weyburn once again had a resident provincial court judge.
Lawyer Bill Holliday replied, “You won’t have a resident court judge if you don’t have clerks. Provincial court provides way more services than just setting a trial.”
He noted back in the 1990s, the then-NDP government tried this same move and it didn’t work, so they brought the files and the clerks back.
“Since Legal Aid moved out, how are people who have no money in the first place supposed to get to Estevan? This has been a slow progression of dropping off,” Mayor Roy said.
Chief Pritchard said an unanticipated impact of these court changes, with all of the files and clerks gone, is the province has turned Weyburn into a circuit court point, and it didn’t work when it was tried in the 1990s, forcing the government to restore the services again.
“We’re already seeing some issues. The files aren’t available, and people can’t access justice. People are coming to our front doors and asking how do we do this? How do we pay our fines when the court house doors are locked?” said the police chief.
“It’s just spinning out of control. The court system can’t deal with it,” added the mayor, pointing out if people can’t pay their fines, then they will find themselves being suspended, and their situation just gets worse without any way to deal with it.
Sarauer expressed doubt that this move would even save $100,000 as the government was hoping, and commented, “Removing access to court services isn’t going to solve anything.”
Twila Walkeden, manager of the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce, brought up the concerns that having all court matters being heard in Regina or Estevan means people will travel there and do their shopping there.
“It’s a lack of fiscal responsibility, with $8 million in renovations to the Court House. … Can that building be repurposed somehow?” asked Walkeden.
“You have another reason for people not to shop in Weyburn. There wasn’t much vision or thought process in what has happened,” said Coun. Michel.
Mayor Roy noted he was told that the cost of operating the Court House rose by 15 per cent.
“This makes absolutely no sense. I don’t think those court clerks were getting a 15-per-cent raise,” commented lawyer Scott Moffat.
Mayor Roy said as the city council, their job will be do try and make whatever adjustments are necessary to live with the government’s decision, but pointed out the lack of sense in the decision as he noted that Regina courts are so overbooked that they are talking about having night court sessions.
“As citizens, there are certain things we depend on, including health care and education. … It’s offensive for citizens of this area to be told you’re not worth $300 a day,” said Moffat, referring to the savings amount broken down to a daily number.
