Canada's backlogged civil and family courts in 'crisis,' according to lawyers group

Bringing civil and family cases to Canadian courts has reached a crisis point due to years of delays, according to a lawyers group dedicated to access to justice issues.

Bringing civil and family cases to Canadian courts has reached a crisis point due to years of delays, according to a lawyers group dedicated to access to justice issues.

The Advocates' Society, a national organization of lawyers dedicated to justice issues, says the worst delays are in Ontario, where litigants can expect to wait up to five years to have a dispute settled by a judge.

Most of all, the paper warns, the gridlock risks damaging the rule of law, undermining public confidence in the courts and, if allowed to continue, could create a two-tiered justice system where litigants with the deepest pockets can access speedy resolutions through private arbitration while others are forced to wait.

Unlike the criminal courts, which the Supreme Court ruled must bring an accused to trial within 18 to 30 months of being charged, there is no prescribed limit on how long civil and family matters can take.

"We're approaching a breaking point," said Advocates' Society president Dominique Hussey, a Toronto intellectual property litigator and managing partner with Bennett Jones.

"We are hearing so many stories about clients not being able to achieve justice in a timely way that it was clear to us that it is truly becoming a crisis."