Equal access to justice threatened in the Acadian Peninsula, lawyers say

Lawyers say they're worried about the closure of courthouses underway in the province for the last 15 years, with the Acadian Peninsula the latest region to be hit.

This week, the provincial government announced that the courthouse in Caraquet will close Jan. 1, and its caseload will be transferred to Bathurst, about 66 kilometres away. 

The Tracadie courthouse will become a satellite court, opening only one day a week.

Lawyers who spoke with Radio-Canada say they have fears about how this will impact predominantly French-speaking New Brunswickers in the region, who will be forced to travel farther and face additional costs as a result. 

"It seems we have forgotten that access to justice is a fundamental right recognized by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms," said attorney Euclide Lebouthillier, the vice-president of the Association of French Speaking Jurists of New Brunswick.

This right isn't worth much if citizens don't have the means to exercise it, Lebouthillier said.

"Inevitably what's going to happen is that people are going to renounce their rights recognized under the charter," he said.

The two courthouses that deal with criminal cases in provincial court have been operating on reduced hours since the summer of 2020, the Department of Justice and Public Safety said in a news release this week.  

There has also been a decrease in the volume of cases in the region since 2012, the release said.

"These changes will allow us to make the best use of available resources given the current volume of cases," Justice and Public Safety Minister Hugh Flemming said in a statement.

"Since the Bathurst courthouse has the capacity to absorb these cases, making these changes will allow us to relieve workload pressures for staff and better allocate resources in our court system."

In 2012 ,the Caraquet court saw 1,260 cases but this number had fallen to 711 in 2020, according to numbers provided by the government. The Tracadie courthouse saw 1,061 cases in 2012 compared with 478 in 2020. 

"The target for occupancy per courtroom is 1,200 charges per year," said the Justice Department. "It's how the province determines how many courtrooms are needed per location to accommodate the volume."

The chief judge of the provincial court was consulted about closures, the province said Wednesday.