As if the new Toronto courthouse wasn’t already facing enough challenges, it was a hit with another one on Friday: Zoom-bombing.
The Star witnessed two very busy courtrooms targeted and suddenly flooded with people making racist and Nazi remarks, playing loud music, and displaying pornographic videos.
One user with the name “Snoop Dogg” asked over the voices of lawyers and court staff: “Did you guys have a good 4/20?”
Clerks were swift to mute the offending individuals, who quickly popped in and out, as judges tried to get matters back on track.
“It’s annoying, to say the least,” said Ontario court Judge Patrice Band, “among other things.”
The Ministry of the Attorney General had previously committed in 2021 to reviewing how to handle such incidents as courts were forced into the digital age by the pandemic, which at the time had caused the cancellation of most in-person hearings.
On Friday, the ministry said police were notified of the incident, and that “security mechanisms exist” to reduce instances of zoom-bombing, but didn’t provide details.
The new Ontario Court of Justice courthouse on Armoury Street, near Dundas Street West and University Avenue, has been plagued by issues since it started hearing cases last month that threaten to jeopardize criminal matters moving through the backlogged system.
The main problem is the constant closure of courtrooms due to a chronic shortage of staff, including clerks and court reporters. The court said 17 courtrooms had to be closed last week, and 22 the week before that.
Closures continued this week, with 23 courtrooms shuttered due to staff shortages — the highest amount in one week so far this month.
The result is trials having to be adjourned, adding delay that could lead to cases eventually being tossed for violating a person’s constitutional right to a trial within a reasonable time, and leaving victims without any sense of justice.
“Victims and witnesses cannot move on with their lives,” Judge Brock Jones said in court last week, sounding the alarm on the staff shortages. “Some cases are lost due to excessive delay, and those cases will never be heard on their merits.”
On Friday, defence lawyer Lon Rose expressed outrage in court that the trial for his client — a young Indigenous man in custody with mental health and substance use issues — was being postponed due to the lack of a courtroom.
The man was set to stand trial for failing to appear in court, a matter that would have likely taken just a few hours. “He’s appeared and the justice system seems not to be able to appear for him,” Rose said.
The man was also supposed to have a trial for mischief earlier this month that got adjourned until next Friday due to the lack of a courtroom. And he has a robbery trial scheduled for next Monday and Tuesday, but Rose said he had no confidence that it would go ahead on time.
“Holy smokes, how can anybody have any confidence in the administration of justice in this building when, on a constant basis, people are told to wait for hours and hours and come back different days?” Rose asked Band.
“This is, in my respectful submission, somewhat pathetic.”
The judge referred to the “huge problem” and described the accused as “another victim of court closures that are related to staffing deficiencies in this building.”
Rose floated that a potential remedy would be to ask the Superior Court to review the denial of his client’s bail “and blame how bad the system is as the basis for getting it.”
OPSEU, which represents a number of court workers, say they’re dealing with burnout from working long hours, and a number of them have quit.
The Ministry of the Attorney General is responsible for staffing the courts, and has refused to comment on the shortage, saying it does not publicly discuss “confidential human resources information.” It said it continues to hire new staff.
Attorney General Doug Downey’s office did not respond to the Star’s requests for an interview this week.
The $956 million courthouse will eventually handle all adult and youth criminal matters from six smaller Ontario Court of Justice courthouses scattered across the city. So far, the criminal caseload from four courthouses have been merged, and will be followed by the Scarborough and Old City Hall courthouses next month.
The court said 22 courtrooms at Old City Hall had to be closed this week due to staff shortages.
The caseload from the 1000 Finch Ave. W. courthouse just arrived at the new courthouse on Monday, and yet by Tuesday, a Crown attorney from 1000 Finch was telling Judge Sheila Ray that she and three of her colleagues had trials or pretrials that had been postponed due to courtroom closures and they didn’t know where to go.
The phrase “we’re in a holding pattern” was repeated several times Tuesday as closed courtrooms left trials without a home and with the faint hope that some would suddenly open up and take them in.
Crown attorney Stuart Rothman told Ray that “regrettably” the prosecution was asking to adjourn an entire impaired driving trial — for a case stemming from December 2021 in which a city worker was injured — due to the lack of a courtroom.
“So here’s the situation,” Rothman told Ray. Everyone appeared on Monday for trial, including all Crown witnesses, the accused, the interpreter, and the lawyers.
“There were not enough available courtrooms to accommodate our matter,” Rothman said, adding they were “double-booked” with a preliminary hearing for a homicide case that had to proceed instead.
“So we came back today...Once again, there does not appear to be any courtrooms to accommodate our matter.”
He noted his case was one of at least five trials on Tuesday that couldn’t go ahead due to courtroom closures. He asked that the case return next week so the parties could figure out a new trial date.
“It is very unfortunate that we continue to have court closures on a daily basis, it seems, Your Honour,” Rothman said on Tuesday.
“Hopefully things will get better soon.”
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