Chapter 3 Ministry of the Attorney General Section 3.07 Court Services Figure 1: Caseloads: Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Background Court of Justice, and Court of Appeal for Ontario, 2007 Source of data: Ministry of the Attorney General In Ontario, the court system comprises three sepa- appeals (CAO) rate and independent courts of law: the Ontario small claims (SCJ) (1,581) (66,610) Court of Justice, the Superior Court of Justice, and the Court of Appeal for Ontario. The Ontario Court of Justice (OCJ) handles civil (SCJ) (84,768) approximately 97% of the 620,000 criminal and criminal youth charges tried annually, including bail hearings, preliminary hearings, and trials. It may also deal with certain family law matters, family (OCJ and SCJ) such as child welfare. The Superior Court of Justice (86,983) Chapter 3 • VFM Section 3.07 (SCJ) tries more serious criminal cases: family law matters dealing with divorce, division of property, criminal (SCJ) criminal (OCJ) and child welfare; and all civil matters, including (4,175) (285,517) small claims. This court may also hear appeals of cases originating in the Ontario Court of Justice. Justices of the peace work primarily in criminal law The Court of Appeal for Ontario (CAO) hears matters, including presiding over bail hearings and appeals from decisions of the Ontario Court of issuing summonses or search warrants. In addition, Justice and the Superior Court of Justice. Figure 1 collectively, they spend about 45% of their time illustrates the caseloads of the courts. presiding in municipal courts adjudicating pro- The federal government appoints and remuner- vincial offences, such as those under the Highway ates judges in the Superior Court of Justice and the Traffic Act, and municipal bylaw infractions, such as Court of Appeal for Ontario; the province appoints those under the Liquor Licence Act. and remunerates judges and justices of the peace The Court Services Division (Division) of the in the Ontario Court of Justice. We refer to the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ministry) sup- judges and the justices of the peace collectively as ports the operations of the court system through the Judiciary. As of March 2008, there were about over 225 courthouses and office facilities and 3,000 285 judges and 345 justices of the peace in the OCJ, court support staff. Its primary functions include: 300 judges in the SCJ, and 24 judges in the CAO. 202 Court Services 203 • providing courtroom staff—clerks, interpret- and recommendations made to the Ministry by the ers, and court reporters; Standing Committee on Public Accounts regarding • preparing enforcement documentation and our 2003 audit. enforcing orders, maintaining court records We also communicated with the Chief Justice and files, and serving the public and the of Ontario, on behalf of the Court of Appeal for respective legal counsels; Ontario; the Chief Justice of the Superior Court of • providing administrative and support staff Justice; and the Chief Justice of the Ontario Court and services to the Judiciary, such as trial co- of Justice (collectively referred to as Chief Justices). ordination, court statistics, caseflow manage- The Chief Justices provided us with helpful com- ment, and information technology; and ments and gave us their perspectives on the court • collecting fines. system and the judicial support services provided The Division’s expenditures for the 2007/08 fis- by the Ministry. cal year were $405 million: $156 million for oper- In addition, we contacted certain stakeholders ating the offices of the Judiciary and for salaries to discuss their perspectives on court operations. and benefits for provincially appointed judges and These stakeholders included representatives from justices of the peace; and $249 million for adminis- municipally administered courts, municipal police trative and court staffing costs and other expenses services, the Ontario Provincial Police, Crown required to support the operation of courts. In prosecutors, and Legal Aid Ontario. The audit addition, the Ministry spent about $77 million on also benefited from our observations made in a capital projects to modernize and improve court concurrent audit we performed on the Ministry of buildings. Revenues pertaining to court services, Community Safety and Correctional Services’ Adult primarily from fines and court fees, were approxi- Institutional Services, which operate Ontario’s mately $124 million. adult correctional institutions. We also researched courts operations in other provinces and in several U.S. states for comparison purposes. Our audit followed the professional standards of Audit Objective and Scope the Canadian Institute for Chartered Accountants for assessing value for money and compliance. We Chapter 3 • VFM Section 3.07 Our audit objective was to assess whether the Min- set an objective for what we wanted to achieve in istry and, where appropriate, the Ministry in con- the audit and developed audit criteria that covered junction with the Judiciary, had adequate systems the key systems, policies, and procedures that and procedures in place to: should be in place and operating effectively. These • ensure that the Division’s resources for courts criteria were discussed with and agreed to by senior were managed efficiently; and management at the Ministry. We designed and con- • measure and report on the effectiveness of ducted tests and procedures to address our audit court operations in contributing to a fair and objective and criteria. accessible justice system. Over the past several years, the Ministry’s Inter- The scope of our audit included interviews with nal Audit Division conducted a number of reviews ministry officials, as well as examination of files and of the Division’s operations, including reviews of documentation at the Ministry’s head office and vis- financial and operational internal controls at sev- its to three regional offices and nine courthouses. eral courthouses. The reviews were helpful and of We also considered the recommendations we sufficient quality to allow us to reduce the extent of made regarding court services in our 2003 Annual our work in certain areas. Report, our follow-up status report issued in 2005, 204 2008 Annual Report of the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario DelAyS in access tO informatiOn sions to Cabinet on backlog initiatives within a reasonable time period, we would have planned our The Auditor General Act requires the Auditor Gen- work differently while we were in the field. Simi- eral, in the annual report for each year, to report on larly, key decisions on large capital projects, such as whether the Auditor received all the information the business case and justification for the projects, and explanations required to complete the neces- were contained in the submissions to Management sary work. Section 10 of the Auditor General Act Board, which were not made available to us during states, in part, “…The Auditor General is entitled our fieldwork when we were reviewing the related to have free access to all books, accounts, financial project documentation. We are concerned that this records, electronic data processing records, reports, has occurred—especially given that we seldom files and all other papers, things or property belong- encounter delays of this extent in obtaining infor- ing to or used by a ministry.” mation from other ministries. In 2003, we established a formal protocol with Following our audit field work, the Ministry the government regarding the interaction of minis- informed us that it would be taking steps to ensure tries with our Office. The Handbook for Interaction that this does not happen again. Specifically, the with the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario, Ministry planned to issue a protocol to its senior prepared by the Ontario Internal Audit Division of management team outlining expectations about the Treasury Board Office, Ministry of Finance, for future co-operation with our Office—including use by ministries states the following: time frames for the collection, review, and approval ...information requests should be dealt of required documents in accordance with other with expeditiously and documents established protocols—and setting out the role of released in a timely way... In addition, the senior management team members to ensure the process agreed upon between Cabinet that future document requests are proactively Office and other Central Agencies, and the managed. Office of the Auditor General of Ontario to record and monitor the timely processing and return of the required information Chapter 3 • VFM Section 3.07 should be followed to ensure that the Summary Auditor General is expeditiously provided with the information they require. In our 1997 and 2003 audits, we reported that serious backlogs in the courts were growing— During our audit we experienced significant particularly for criminal cases in the Ontario Court delays in obtaining key documents from the Min- of Justice—and that more successful solutions were istry. Following our initial requests in December needed for eliminating backlogs. Over the last five 2007, the Ministry took from three to six months to years, the Ministry has undertaken a number of provide us with several key documents it had used initiatives, worked collaboratively with the Judi- to obtain approval from the Management Board ciary, and increased operating funding for courts by of Cabinet for new capital and program initiatives almost $100 million—over half of which occurred over the previous