Axing new Fredericton courthouse hurts anyone who goes to court, lawyer says

An indefinite halt to the Fredericton courthouse project will have a huge impact on anyone dealing with the courts, including people already stuck in long waits for developments in family law cases, a local lawyer says.

Right now, if someone files a motion, it might not get to a judge for six months — a period that will continue to lengthen, Jennifer Donovan of J. Donovan Law Group predicted Monday.

"In family law, six months is an eternity," said Donovan, who has practised family law for 14 years and serves on the executive of the York Sunbury Law Society.

"When people can't access justice and get resolution, it impacts their mental health, they're not functioning at work, it affects the rest of their relationships, it may affect their financial security."

The Progressive Conservative government announced last week that it was postponing several high-profile projects, including a renovated Centennial Building and new courthouse in Fredericton.

Premier Blaine Higgs has indicated the projects were being dropped, saying the province doesn't need more government buildings.

Legal community isn't happy

For more than 40 years, the courts in Fredericton have been housed on Queen Street in a building that started out as the provincial normal school, later the New Brunswick Teachers' College.

The former Liberal government planned to spend $76 million to refurbish the Centennial Building, which has a heritage designation, and put a new courthouse where the south wing used to be.

The province has already spent about $13.05 million on demolition and foundation work at the downtown site. Now the plan for the property is merely to tidy it up and add some fencing to the site.

Donovan said the legal community is unhappy about the decision not to go ahead with the courthouse.

"We were super happy at the news that we were going to get a new courthouse, so the sudden change in plans has been quite an upset," she said.

"It goes beyond trying to save money and it goes beyond not needing another government building in Fredericton."

Security an issue

Although she doesn't think the project will be revived anytime soon, Donovan said there are a number of reasons why a new courthouse is needed in the capital, beginning with security of the judiciary, lawyers and parties in court.

"Right now, with our justice building, when the judges leave the courtroom, they can walk, or have to walk, amongst the public and the parties they just adjudicated for, which we don't believe is safe," she said.

Donovan hasn't witnessed a judge being approached by anyone, but she was hoping the new building would offer the level of security available in Saint John and Miramichi, where the court buildings are newer.

"I don't see judges leaving courtrooms when matters are over with," she said.

Courtrooms aren't big enough

Donovan said the courtrooms aren't big enough, and everyone has to walk through the same entryway, which can get "quite congested."

Nor is there "enough manpower" to monitor everyone.

"When you walk in there, there can be a number of people waiting to go to various courtrooms but everyone's congregated in one space," she said.

The new courthouse was supposed to be ready by March 2020 and house provincial court, the Court of Queen's Bench and the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.

"It's a reminder of what's supposed to be that's not," Donovan said of the unfinished site. "But I think it goes back to the state of our province."

She said the new courthouse would have allowed more people on the daily docket.

"It goes beyond the dollar, and it's about humans and making the province a better place for people to function," she said.