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The more than 3½ years it will take to get Calgary terrorism suspect Jamal Borhot to trial amounts to an unreasonable delay in breach of his Charter rights, his lawyer says.
Defence counsel Pawel Milczarek has filed a notice of motion seeking a judicial stay of Borhot’s charges involving allegations he went to Syria to aid ISIS.
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In it, Milczarek said none of the three years, eight months and eight days it will take to conclude his client’s prosecution can be attributed to the defence.
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As a result, he says in his written material, the only option for Justice Corina Dario is to enter a judicial stay of Borhot’s charges, ending his prosecution.
Under the Supreme Court’s decision in the Jordan case, the nation’s top court said any trials which conclude more than 30 months after a person is charged are presumptively unreasonably delayed.
Short of delays caused by the defence or extraordinary circumstances causing the case to last longer, trials exceeding the 30-month period will result in an accused person’s Charter right to be tried within a reasonable amount of time to be violated.
Milczarek, in his written application, said despite Borhot having two prior lawyers who withdrew from the case, all of the delay in the proceedings is as a result of court or prosecutorial delay.
Much of the period of time it has taken to get the case to trial in Calgary Court of King’s Bench involved several motions which had to be dealt with in the Federal Court and commenced by the Attorney General of Canada.
Milczarek said both the federal attorney general’s department and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada lawyers handling Borhot’s prosecution should be held accountable for the lengthy delay.
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