The Medicine Hat Provincial Courthouse with COVID-19 precautions. (CHAT News photo)

By Alex McCuaig

Courting technology

An inside look on how the city’s courts are dealing with the pandemic

Sep 25, 2020 | 3:56 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the ability of the courts to balance public safety with public access.

The chiefs of the city’s provincial court and Court of Queen’s Bench say they are trying to leverage technology to meet that goal.

Provincial courthouses in Alberta mandated that justice system participants and media be provided access to the courts during the early days of the pandemic.

That wasn’t always the case.

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Chief Judge Derek Redman addressed the issue while in the city Thursday to celebrate the centennial of the Medicine Hat old courthouse.

“It’s critical that people see justice being done so we always welcomed the media,” said Redman. “I must say the way we welcomed them must have been confusing to the media and the public. There were times that sheriffs were instructed to limit the amount of people that came into the courtrooms. It was almost a day-by-day analysis of the COVID situation.”

The public and media can now access the courts but there are limits.

The judge, clerks, lawyers and accused have Plexiglas barriers while the courtroom’s Alberta Sheriff maintains social distance.

But with Medicine Hat courtrooms only having a capacity for 11 people in total, it can be difficult to accommodate more than a half dozen individuals outside of court staff in courtrooms designed to allow 60 to 80 members of the public during normal times.

Proceedings for criminal, family and youth matters are going ahead while traffic court is operating in a limited capacity.

Redman says the pandemic has highlighted challenges to the provincial small-claims court which hears cases that involve civil matters of up to $50,000 as well as residential tenancy issues. Those challenges stem from the courts operating with a paper-based system in the digital age prior to the pandemic.

“The civil division of the provincial court insists on people coming to the courthouse, filing documents in person, paying the fee for the filing of the claim in person. We had no ability to file online. We still don’t effectively,” said Redman. “We had no ability to accept money online and that’s something we’ve worked through but in this time period, we have to modernize.”

Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench has transitioned to electronic filings for all matters since the pandemic started when they previously didn’t accept any. Paper copies can still be filed.

Media can access the Queen’s Bench video conferencing platforms for many cases.

Modernizing the courts is something Chief Justice Mary Moreau addressed during the beginning of the pandemic in April, stressing it as an opportunity to bring the system into the digital era.

“Some of the solutions that have presented themselves in the interim – and that is the technological advances that we are making – we want to hang on to for the long haul because they are making processes much more efficient in our court,” said Moreau who was also in Medicine Hat celebrating the city’s courthouse centennial. “There are a lot of bumps but it is a pretty incredible journey.”

Regarding media access to an upcoming trial of a Walsh gas station owner charged with multiple counts of assault, CHAT News has been assured access to that proceedings but details of how have yet to be provided.