Yes - Corporations DO Have Rights

We have written before on the groundbreaking decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R v Jordan (see our previous blog post on that case here). In Jordan, the Supreme Court of Canada set hard caps on the time it takes to process a criminal (or regulatory) prosecution to trial. The time limit under the cap is determined by the court procedure elected by the Crown in prosecuting the offence.

If the actual time to the end of trial exceeds the cap, then absent certain defined circumstances, the right of the accused to be tried within a reasonable time under section 11(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is considered to have been breached. This invariably results in a stay of proceedings, which has the effect of dismissing the charges and preventing the Crown from laying them again.