Remarks on the criminal hearings held in certain first-instance jurisdictions

Between November 2022 and January 2023, thirteen of the country's eighteen first-instance jurisdictions held correctional and criminal hearings, and the network and its regional structures gave particular attention to the criminal ones. Of the 154 cases scheduled, 149 without a jury and 5 with one, 104 were heard and 50 were adjourned. Of the 200 people who should have been tried at those hearings, 128 were: 75 were convicted and 53 released. The fate of 72 of the accused was left unsettled, either because the verdict was not delivered at the hearing or because the criminal courts adjourned their cases.

The report sets that against the context in which the judicial year 2022-2023 opened, records general and specific observations on how the hearings were organised, and measures their effect on pretrial detention. Its recommendations include acting on the commitments the state made to court clerks in the 2017 agreement, so that their working conditions improve. Like the peace court studies, it was produced under a project run by Avocats sans frontières Canada, and its content is stated to be the network's responsibility alone.