The report found 11 per cent of first-appearance bail hearings in 2019 went over the constitutionally mandated 24-hour limit.

A quarter of Jordan’s Principle applications — 66 of 267 — filed between October 2016 and March 2020 resulted in charges being withdrawn or stayed. These charges included first-degree murder, serious sexual assaults and child pornography.

Auditor General Doug Wylie said these issues are of serious concern.

“We believe that improving these processes is important to prevent criminal charges being dismissed by the courts because of preventable delays to bail hearings or trials,” he said during a news availability on Thursday.

That said, the auditor general also concluded that the systems in place were adequately designed by Alberta Justice and Solicitor General.

Tracking Jordan cases

Jordan’s Principle imposes maximum time limits for cases to be heard starting from when charges are laid — 18 months for provincial court and 30 months for the Court of Queen’s Bench. It stems from a Supreme Court of Canada decision from July 2016.

While the Crown prosecution service has methods to track and report on cases that near or exceed that timeline, it only conducted one historical Jordan cause analysis in June 2019. The auditor found no evidence that more analyses had been completed or scheduled.

The auditor’s report notes the 2019 analysis only concluded that police needed to improve their practices. However, a review by the auditor of Alberta-based Jordan stay decisions since then showed “various shortcomings in Crown practices.”

The Crown responded to the 2016 Jordan decision with a system that would fit within the constraints of the service’s resources. It introduced a triage protocol to prioritize cases and focus on serious and violent crime to prevent significant cases from being thrown out.

Each of the 15 provincial offices must track its cases and report to senior management when any viable cases have been withdrawn. 

But the auditor general also found errors and omissions in many of the required monthly submissions between mid-2017 and mid-2019.

Bail hearing ‘over-holds’

Crown prosecutors took over handling first-appearance bail hearings in 2017 following a ruling that police officers could not act on their behalf.

“Over-holds” — bails delayed over the 24-hour limit — ballooned to the point where the Court of Appeal called on the province to fix the hearing system.

A weekly and monthly reporting system for over-holds is now in place. In 2019, this hit a peak of 18.2 per cent in May and a low of 4.6 per cent in December.

The auditor’s report notes the Crown has developed action items to address the issue but has done little follow-up evaluation.

A detailed results analysis on bail hearing data has not been performed since May 2019.