Although a young person is jointly charged with committing a criminal offence with an adult, a young person cannot be tried together with that adult. The YCJA is the exclusive means of trying a young person for a federal offence. The Act does not allow for the transfer of a young person to adult court only to keep the young person together with an adult co-actor in the alleged crime. The young person and the adult must be tried separately, the former under the YCJA and the adult in the adult court and subject to the provisions of the Criminal Code. The Attorney General is not entitled to prefer a direct indictment requiring that the youth and the adult be tried together.
The Youth Justice Court is separate from the adult system; with separate courts and rules. In reality, however, the same Judges usually preside as Judges in Provincial Court for adults and also perform the role of Judges for the Youth Court. Consequently, it is not uncommon to hear the clerk of the court stand to say, “Adult court is in recess, Youth Court to commence” and thereafter the same Judge, who, minutes before, was presiding in adult court, is, by these few words uttered by the clerk of the court, transformed into a Youth Court Judge for proceedings under the YCJA. It all must seem rather confusing to uninformed members of the public. A Youth Justice Court Judge is a Judge appointed or designated to sit in a Court established or designated as a Youth Justice Court. Most, if not all, are also designated as Judges of the Provincial Court system. And, we are about to discuss the circumstances under which a Superior Court Justice will preside as a Youth Court Justice.
The above is the an excerpt of Patrick J Ducharme’s book, Canadian Criminal Procedure, available at Amazon or in bulk through MedicaLegal Publishing along with Criminal Trial Strategies.
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