C-258 (45-1) - An Act to amend the Criminal Code to address the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Jordan
Chamber
commons
Stage
1st Reading
Introduced
Dec 3, 2025
Progress
This bill writes the Supreme Court's R. v. Jordan trial-delay rules into the Criminal Code, with an exception for serious sexual offences.
Key Changes
- Codifies the 30-month trial ceiling for superior court cases directly in the Criminal Code
- Codifies the 18-month trial ceiling for provincial court cases directly in the Criminal Code
- Requires judges to stay proceedings (drop charges) if these ceilings are exceeded, unless exceptional circumstances are proven by the Crown
- Excludes delays caused or waived by the defence from the time calculation
- Creates an exception so that 'primary designated offences' (serious sexual offences) are not subject to the trial time limits
- Invokes the notwithstanding clause (Section 33 of the Charter) to override the Section 11(b) right to trial within a reasonable time for those excluded offences
Gotchas
- The bill uses the notwithstanding clause (Section 33 of the Charter) to override the right to trial within a reasonable time for primary designated offences — this is a rare and significant constitutional step that bypasses Charter protections for those accused.
- Primary designated offences under Section 487.04 of the Criminal Code include serious sexual offences; accused persons in these cases could face indefinite delays without the ability to seek a stay of proceedings under this framework.
- While the bill aims to protect victims by preventing charges from being dropped in serious cases, it also removes a legal safeguard for accused persons in those same cases, which raises due process considerations.
- The bill codifies existing case law but does not address the root causes of court delays, such as underfunding or judicial vacancies.
- Defence-caused delays are excluded from the ceiling calculation, but the bill does not define in detail what counts as defence-caused delay, which may lead to continued litigation on that question.
Who's Affected
- Accused persons awaiting trial in Canadian courts
- Victims of serious sexual offences, whose cases would not be subject to dismissal due to delay
- Crown prosecutors, who must prove exceptional circumstances if ceilings are exceeded
- Defence lawyers navigating trial scheduling and delay arguments
- Provincial and superior court judges who must apply the new rules
- The justice system broadly, given court backlogs
Vibes
0 responses
Gotchas
- The bill uses the notwithstanding clause (Section 33 of the Charter) to override the right to trial within a reasonable time for primary designated offences — this is a rare and significant constitutional step that bypasses Charter protections for those accused.
- Primary designated offences under Section 487.04 of the Criminal Code include serious sexual offences; accused persons in these cases could face indefinite delays without the ability to seek a stay of proceedings under this framework.
- While the bill aims to protect victims by preventing charges from being dropped in serious cases, it also removes a legal safeguard for accused persons in those same cases, which raises due process considerations.
- The bill codifies existing case law but does not address the root causes of court delays, such as underfunding or judicial vacancies.
- Defence-caused delays are excluded from the ceiling calculation, but the bill does not define in detail what counts as defence-caused delay, which may lead to continued litigation on that question.
Summary
In 2016, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Jordan that criminal trials must happen within set time limits: 18 months for provincial court cases and 30 months for superior court cases. If these limits are exceeded, charges must be stayed (dropped), unless the Crown can prove exceptional circumstances caused the delay. This bill takes those court-made rules and formally writes them into the Criminal Code so they become law passed by Parliament. The bill also introduces a significant exception: the time limits would not apply to 'primary designated offences,' which are serious crimes listed in the Criminal Code — mainly serious sexual offences such as sexual assault. This means accused persons charged with those offences could not use the Jordan framework to have their charges stayed due to delay. To use this exception for serious sexual offences, the bill invokes the notwithstanding clause (Section 33 of the Charter), which allows Parliament to override certain Charter rights — in this case, the right under Section 11(b) to be tried within a reasonable time. This is a notable and controversial legal mechanism.
Automatically generated from bill text using Claude
Vibes
0 responses