TORONTO - There will be no public inquiry into the 18-year legal saga that ultimately saw Robert Baltovich acquitted of murdering his girlfriend after spending eight years in jail, Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley said Friday.

Bentley announced his decision after giving the matter "a great deal of thought" and speaking with the parents of Baltovich's former girlfriend Elizabeth Bain, who disappeared in 1990.

"I've listened carefully to the reasons for and against another inquiry into this matter, and I've concluded that another inquiry into this case will not provide additional information to strengthen the administration of justice," he said.

The province will be receiving recommendations on how to improve the system so that such long delays of justice don't happen again, Bentley added.

"I say to Mr. and Mrs. Bain, you have my commitment, our government's commitment, that we will improve our system of justice so that no family will have to wait like you have had to - that we move to justice faster," he said.

Baltovich, who added his voice to calls for an inquiry, was acquitted minutes into his second trial last month when the Crown said it had no evidence to support a conviction.

He was handed a life sentence in 1992 after he was found guilty of killing Bain. The 42-year-old served eight years of his prison sentence before he was given a chance to appeal his case and released on bail in 2000.

Bentley acknowledged that while Baltovich received a fair trial, it took too long.

"We all know that justice requires patience," he said. "But cases shouldn't take 18 years."

Baltovich's lawyer James Lockyer condemned Bentley's decision, saying he tried to convince the attorney general in a meeting earlier this week to hold an inquiry.

"It's a case that now looks like it's doomed to never being solved, which is a terrible thing," said Lockyer, a prominent criminal lawyer who has been involved in exposing a number of wrongful conviction cases in Canada, including David Milgaard's.

"The justice system made such a mess of this case. For 18 years, they made a mess of it and nothing's going to be done to ensure it doesn't happen to someone else."

Lockyer said he hasn't been able to reach Baltovich, who took his first plane trip on Sunday to visit relatives out west.

"I know he'll be disappointed," he said.

Without an official probe into what happened, neither the Bain family nor Baltovich will find the answers they've sought for so long, said Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory.

Bentley's decided "everything's OK," he added.

"He's answered all the questions in his own mind - hasn't answered it for the rest of us, by the way - and now he's trying to sweep all this under the carpet."

The attorney general had initially dismissed the idea of a public inquiry, which received a more sympathetic response from Premier Dalton McGuinty.

But Bentley has failed to show any interest into why Baltovich was wrongly convicted and why it took so long to clear his name, said NDP justice critic Peter Kormos.

"We can't understand how we have to change the system unless we understand what went wrong in the Baltovich case, along with so many others," he said.

Police have said they have no plans to launch any new investigation into the murder of 22-year-old Bain, who vanished from the University of Toronto's east-end campus in June 1990. Her bloodstained car was found nearby three days later.

Police suspected Baltovich almost immediately. The Crown contended at his trial in 1992 that he killed her because she planned to break up with him.

Along with Baltovich and his lawyers, those close to the case have said the Crown and the officers who charged Baltovich still have much to answer for.

Other issues include what appears to have been a consistent lack of disclosure of important evidence that might have exonerated Baltovich, and an unwillingness to consider sex killer Paul Bernardo as a viable suspect.

Baltovich didn't request financial compensation, Bentley said. But Lockyer suggested his client hasn't ruled it out.

"Rob's own position at the moment is, 'Right now, I just need to get on with my life and I'll think about that in due course,"' Lockyer said.

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