Appeal from conviction on the basis that trial judge erred in dismissing s 11(b) Jordan application. Net delay was 31.5 months, which included a 5-month period where the Crown stayed the prosecution due to lack of contact with the complainant. Issue of whether the trial judge erred in finding that delay was justified under the transitional exception.
Held: No s 11(b) violation; appeal dismissed.
Majority of the case occurred in the pre-Jordan period, and the trial judge “was entitled to have regard to the Morin analysis, which relied on a judicial balancing of the interests that the section is designed to protect, rather than any mathematical or administrative formula.” While the Crown’s failure to stay in contact with the complainant “was obviously undesirable, and a cause of the delay that pushed this prosecution over the Jordan limit”, when “considered against all the interests at play the trial judge reasonably concluded that the Crown had justified the short delay in excess of the Jordan limit.”
D. Wolsey – Defence Counsel