We had a meeting on Friday September 27th with a majority of stakeholders to see how the revised changes to Bail was going. The project appears to be working by reducing the number of prisoners being brought to the court house but what we did identify, was a work flow issue.. The end result will be that we will be switching SB2 and SB3.
Effective Monday October 21st, All Bail matters will be moved into SB2 Starting at 930 am, where the video suite is located and will deal with overnight arrests, video from the various Detention centres and regular bail matters, if I can describe them as that.
Case Management Court will be moved into SB3 with a 900 am start and once Case Management Court has been completed it will become a Bail Assist Court with IPBC taking priority on Mondays and Thursdays at 130 pm.
It is believed that this will assist Court Support Staff with Docket and Information preparation and ensure that proper breaks are given throughout the day.
Signage and the information counter on the first floor will be prepared to advise the public of these changes.
I will be preparing revised Protocols for both SB2 and SB3 and hopefully have them distributed by weeks end.
Also please feel free to share this message with anyone else who would have an interest in this matter.
Thank you,
Bruce
H.W. Bruce W PHILLIPS,
Local Administrative Justice of the Peace Niagara
SB2 Case Management Video Bail Best Practices Protocol 20191021