“Six weeks and two court appearances before evidence was disclosed to the defence, trouble finding a judge and then scheduling conflicts between the Crown and defence lawyers.” Realistically there are a maximum of only 4 and 1/2 scheduled hours a day that a court has to hear cases, if everything goes well. “We used to be able to finish two impaired trials in one day. Over the past several years, things have changed so that, now, even for a basic impaired, at least two days are set aside for trial.” Provincially, it takes an average of 194 days to process an impaired-driving case. In Toronto, the overall average is 324 days and eight court appearances. At the downtown Old City Hall courthouse specifically, it is even slower, with an average of 376 days per case.
RIDE checks will likely yield scores of impaired driving charges in the next few weeks but many won’t be resolved until next Christmas
Source: Backlog of Toronto drunk-driving cases threatens goal of zero tolerance – The Globe and Mail