Backlog of court cases to work through as courthouses across the northeast come back to life

Ontario's justice system is moving away from Zoom and holding more in-person court hearings.

But lawyers across the northeast warn that it could take months to properly clear the backlog of cases delayed during the last two years because of COVID-19.

"I'm living in dread of the floodgates opening and having a logjam," said Laurie Galway, a criminal defence lawyer in Haileybury and president of the Temiskaming District Law Association.

"I'm hoping it's done in an orderly fashion and that the judges don't expect the criminal lawyers to do them all in many jurisdictions at the same time."

She said while the province has hired so-called "COVID Crowns" to prosecute cases, she's had a hard time hiring extra lawyers to help with her caseload.

Galway said while most lawyers have enjoyed the ease of attending hearings remotely and filing court documents electronically, the past two years have been "terrible" for her clients.

She said some clients in custody have twice contracted COVID while in jail, enduring "conditions that are the worst that I've ever seen, and I've been doing this for 31 years."

While criminal jury trials are returning in the coming months, civil litigators are being told that their cases might not make it to trial until 2023.

"Because of COVID, it's hard to say it's an access to justice issue. It's more of an overloading of the system. And we were before COVID already teetering on an overload," said Dhiren Chohan, a partner at Weaver Simmons in Sudbury.

He said personal injury cases and other civil lawsuits can already take years to see the inside of a courtroom and the COVID delay means even more "clients stuck in limbo" dealing with what he calls "litigation fatigue."

"You just get tired of it. You've done everything you can do. And if you're facing a situation where you can't resolve it with the other side, what are you left with?" said Chohan. 

The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General did not reply to CBC's requests for comment. 

But Timmins criminal defence lawyer Behn Gvozdanovic said the system is currently "all over the place" with some courthouses sticking more with online hearings and individual judges having their own personal preferences as well.

The partner with VanBridger, Tomassini and Gvozdanovic said so far there are no plans yet to resume court hearings on the James Bay Coast, where most online hearings haven't been possible.

"The backlogs in the remote northern communities are quite large and that will be difficult as typically there's only one sitting per month, a couple of days up there," said Gvozdanovic, who has some James Bay clients who have been awaiting trial since 2018.