I requested a trial for a $75 parking ticket in August 30th last year. This means that by June 30th, I will have reached 10 months, with still no trial date set. I read that there is this Askov decision that says you have to get your trial date within a "reasonable" period of time, or 8 to 10 months.

Anyway, as soon as the 30th rolls around, I want to contact the Ontario provincial courts and ask to have my ticket tossed out. Anybody ever do this? How do you go about doing this? Who do I contact specifically?

 

I tried that once for a speeding ticket. Waited well over a year for trial, got to the judge and requested that they toss it out and so on. The judge (almighty) just said "Never heard about such a thing", please continue on with your defense and of course eventually found me guilty although there were a lot of other factors like the fact I got pulled at night and th cop had all his lights turned off (another no-no) and dangerously cut me off (another one here) and so on...

Oh well, lesson learned, now I got my radar detector

 

I beleive that it is actually a defence.. but the problem with your approach was that you didn't site the case it was reffereing to.. I'm not a lawyer but I've used this defece before and it worked when i cited the case it came from.. ( my situation was over 10 months. )

 

I would think that you would go contact the courts and use it to never get a trial in the first place, instead of waiting until you get there, in which case the courts resources are already in use, so they might as well make some money off of you?

 

Is there any documentation on that, I've heard of that but never, nor can I find any legal information on what a cop can and can't do, especially in traffic situations

 

Well, I visited the court today requesting that my ticket get tossed. They told me that it doesn't apply to parking tickets, only criminal court... I seem to remember though from my law class that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to all government bodies, so wouldn't this affect parking tickets as well? The reasonable time period that was cited in the Askov case was section 11(b) of the charter...

Well, they offered me a 50% reduction, so I took that and paid it. Don't have time to argue since I'm moving out of province soon.

The courts are now looking at 12-14 months before you get a trial date...

 

It's not askow Decision. It's fighting the ticket under the charter of rights. Basically you have the right to a speedy trial. You can find out more about it here http://www.magma.ca/~fyst/

Raven

 

That's what the Askov decision refers to, section 11(b) of the charter of rights. It's just called Askov decision because the Askov case was the first on that used it or something to get a case dismissed.

They told me that section of the charter only applies to criminal court... I doubt that though.