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If your trial date is more than 8 months away from the offence date, and your court date is more than two weeks away, you can motion for a stay of proceedings based on a violation of your Charter Rights (Section 11b: to be tried in a reasonable amount of time) based on the case of R v. Askov. You must file a "Notice of Constitutional Question" form to the crown, The Attorney General of Ontario, and the Attorney General of Canada. This lets the court know that you intend to dispute the charge with a charter claim. You must do this more than two weeks (15 days or more) before your court date. If mailing the forms, again, be sure to use registered mail. Once you have submitted these forms, go to your originally scheduled court date. If you don't submit these forms, your motion will be denied, regardless of the amount of time since your court date.

Notice of Constitutional Question form:
Sample from e-laws.gov.on.ca (http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/S...4/13204Fae.gif)

Sample from FYST (http://www.magma.ca/~fyst/question.htm)

At your court date, when you are called, you must immediately motion for a stay of proceedings based on your section 11b charter rights (and explain why you feel your section 11b rights have been violated). You must make this motion pre-plea (i.e.: before you have plead guilty/not-guilty). If your motion is accepted, this will get you off the hook right away. Note that you will have a lot more difficulty proving your case if changed your court date without a good reason. If your motion is denied, you will have to proceed to trial.

I will point out that this is not a black and white deadline. It's not like, after exactly 8 months, your case will automatically be dropped. The Askov ruling was way back in 1990, and a lot of things have happened since then. Generally, the 8-month 'deadline' is more of a guideline than an actual deadline. For example, in cases where there is a lot of evidence to go through, it is not unusual for trials to be scheduled more than 8 months from the offence date. Like every motion you make, you have to be able to give reasons why your motion should be accepted. You could argue that for something as simple as an HTA violation in which there is very little evidence or paperwork, an 8+ month wait time is unacceptable. Generally, the further your court date is scheduled past the 8-month marker, the better and easier it is to have it dismissed on a charter claim.

The ruling that 'superceded' R. v. Askov is R. v. Morin. Essentially, to show that your section 11b rights have been violated, the following are considered:
1. the length of the delay; (you have to show that the length is unreasonable)
2. waiver of time periods; (did you waive your section 11b rights?)
3. the reasons for the delay, including
(a) inherent time requirements of the case, (some cases have a huge amount of evidence to go through)
(b) actions of the accused, (did you cause delay in any way? changing court dates, etc.)
(c) actions of the Crown, (did the crown cause delay in any way? fail to give disclosure, changing the court date, etc.)
(d) limits on institutional resources, and (if everyone is waiting 1 year for their court date, a 1 year wait time might not be seen as unreasonable).
(e) other reasons for delay; and
4. prejudice to the accused. (have you suffered any prejudice as a result of the delay?)

If you are serious about making this motion, you should read the ruling here, starting from page 787 (http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/csc-sc...kov~~x=12~~y=6) Also, you should definitely be prepared to go to trial the same day, just in case your motion is denied by the JP. I'll say again that there is no exact time frame after which your rights are considered violated. It's pretty much up to the discretion of the JP (influenced of course, by how convincing your arguments are, as well as whether or not the JP is having a good day), although I suppose you could appeal the decision if the ruling is not in your favour and you really feel that your rights have been violated.

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