2.

His Worship J. M. Campbell. November 25, 1976.

I sympathize with the point you make, I cannot see

any way in which we can substantially increase witness
fees in these times of anti~inflation and budget
restraints.

Your second point deals with the method of
paying the witness and I completely agree with your
statement that the Clerk of the Court should have cash
available to pay the witness. Steps are now being taken
in the Department to arrange this.

Your third point is that justice should be
handled in a more business~like way and again I find
myself in agreement. Solving the problem of sollapsing
trial lists is a major objective of Dennis Sheppard of
my Department who has just recently taken on the duties
of the Courts Services Division. The collapse of the
trial lists is the major reason for overtime paid to
police called as witnesses and tremendous inconvenience
to civilian witnesses. The solution to the problem is
much more difficult than defining it. At least three
components of the system can contribute to the collapse
and only the Crown Counsel component is subject to any
direction from my Department. Therefore, Mr. Sheppard's
task is going to be to marshall co-operation between
Crown Counsel, the Bench and the private defence Bar in
order to make any headway.

Your fourth point deals with the "re-entry of
lay people into the system". It is interesting that you
should raise this particular point because again ‘we are
working along these lines. We have been experimenting
with Referees in the Small Claims Division and with lay
Hearing Officers in traffic matters and our experiments