Supreme Court opts not to change existing rules on trial delays

The silhouette of the Supreme Court of Canada is seen in Ottawa, on Monday, May 25, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada says its framework setting limits on delays in criminal trials is flexible enough to accommodate increasingly complicated cases.

Chief Justice Richard Wagner said Friday the framework the court set out in 2016 in R. v. Jordan is adaptable enough to address the Crown’s concerns.

“In my view, the Jordan framework already provides the flexibility necessary to address the Crown’s concerns. To the extent that jurisprudential and legislative developments in the past decade have increased the complexity of criminal trials, the Jordan framework can comfortably respond,” says the court’s reasons for judgment.

The ruling the Supreme Court released Friday involves an Ontario case where the delay exceeded the limit set by the court by only four days.

R. v. Jordan is the landmark 2016 Supreme Court ruling that set duration limits for criminal trials to protect an accused person’s constitutional right to be tried within a reasonable time.

In this case, the Crown argued the delay was justified by the complexity of the case. It asked the court to change the law in order to give judges more discretion to allow for modest delays in trials.

The decision centred on R. v. Vrbanic, a drug trafficking case involving 18 people that followed a two-year investigation involving a large amount of evidence and several pretrial proceedings.

Robert Vrbanic and Sarah Josipovic were jointly charged with possession of large amounts of four different drugs for the purpose of trafficking and possession of the proceeds of crime.

The co-accused had sought a stay of proceedings on the grounds that their right to a trial within a reasonable time had been breached.

In provincial court, trials must be completed within 18 months of the charge being laid, unless the Crown cites exceptional circumstances, such as complexity.

The Supreme Court already decided to send the case back for trial in December and said that it would release its reasons for that decision at a later date.

“A proper application of Jordan’s case complexity exception to the facts of this case demonstrates that the respondents’ right to trial within a reasonable time was not violated,” Wagner wrote Friday.

The Supreme Court also issued a second decision Friday in which it said a delay beyond the Jordan limits may be justified when it’s caused by a scheduling conflict in a joint trial.

In R. v. Jacques-Taylor, the co-accused were charged with drug- and firearm-related offences. Their respective lawyers were not available at the same time over about a two-month period.

The Supreme Court said Friday that amounted to an exceptional circumstance.

“Joint trials should be held wherever it is in the interests of justice to do so as the norm rather than the exception,” the decision said.

“The Jordan framework must be able to account for the clear advantages that are conferred by joint trials and the need to balance the s. 11(b) right of multiple accused persons throughout the criminal justice system.”

— With files from Jim Bronskill

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 29, 2026.

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press