Mistakes in the Evolving Rules of Delay
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (“the Charter”) establishes in section 11(b) that any person who is charged with an offence must be tried for that offence in a reasonable amount of time.1 Not long after the Charter went into effect, the Supreme Court of Canada (“the Court”) clarified in R v Rahey (“Rahey”) that in order to violate section 11(b), a delay would have to be shockingly long, to an unconscionable degree.
