The Crown appealed a lower court's decision to stay charges against the respondent, Elijah Jacques-Taylor, under section 11(b) of the Charter due to unreasonable delay.
The application judge found a net delay exceeding the 18-month Jordan ceiling, after deducting defence delay and a period for COVID-19 backlog.
The Crown argued errors in applying the contextual approach to initial date setting, failing to deduct delay from a co-accused's unavailability, and implying the Crown should have severed the respondent.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, affirming the application judge's findings that the contextual approach was correctly applied, delay from a co-accused is not automatically attributed to all, and the Crown had tools to address delay without necessarily severing.