Supreme Court will hear case of Edmonton man who waited too long for bail hearing
Lower court stayed proceedings against man accused of domestic violence
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear a case of an Edmonton man who waited 36 hours for a bail hearing after he was arrested for domestic assault.
A provincial court judge stayed charges against Ryan Reilly in April 2018, saying the long wait violated his rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Criminal Code mandates anyone placed under arrest has a constitutional right to a bail hearing within 24 hours.
Reilly was facing charges of assault, unlawful confinement, mischief and failure to comply with a probation order arising from a domestic dispute.
The Crown appealed the stay to the Court of Appeal of Alberta last March.
While the panel of three judges agreed Reilly's rights had been violated due to systemic delays in obtaining a bail hearing, it determined staying his charges was not an appropriate remedy.
"More proportionate and focused remedies are available for the respondent and a stay should not have been granted," the decision said. "The granting of a stay as an individual remedy was excessive on this record."
Reilly has now obtained leave to challenge that decision at the Supreme Court level.
A hearing date has not been set.
Implications across Canada
The subsequent ruling could have implications across the country, said Reilly's lawyer, Deborah Hatch.
"This means the court is recognizing the case has national or public importance, that it is not just a case limited to one person or one province," said Hatch, a seasoned Edmonton criminal lawyer who also represented Reilly in provincial court.
"It also indicates that the court wants to address what should happen in a case like this, where the state has knowingly and routinely been failing to comply with federal laws that deal with release."
In her application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, Hatch argues that the appeal court made a mistake when it determined that an individual remedy was inappropriate to address a systemic failure.
"The appeal court's focus should have been on determining whether the trial judge erred in exercising her discretion to grant a stay in the applicant's case, not on determining whether that same stay of proceedings was an adequate solution to the systemic issues identified within the woefully inadequate Alberta Crown bail system," the document said.
'Situation can't be tolerated'
The Reilly case is important because the stay of proceedings sends a strong message to the government, said Edmonton criminal lawyer Will van Engen.
"While it is a drastic remedy and it results in people that maybe should be going to trial getting off scot free, it does really focus the attention of all participants on making sure the system works," van Engen said.
He hopes the Supreme Court will reinstate the trial judge's decision.
"This will send the message that this kind of situation can't be tolerated, situations in which thousands of people are being held beyond what's authorized by law," van Engen said.
Statistics obtained from Alberta Justice show that between March 2018 and March 2019, more than 25,000 bail hearings were held in Calgary and Edmonton.
During that period, 18 per cent of accused in Edmonton waited longer than 24 hours for their bail hearing, compared to six per cent in Calgary.