The Proper Arena

We often have clients come into our office and they are seeking a solution and they want it adjudicated quickly. This is where clients often become frustrated. An old adage exists that the wheels of justice move slowly. More often than not that adage is correct. Court of King’s Bench sits most every business day.

However, matters that are argued in what is called “morning chambers” are limited to 20 minutes. Quite often 20 minutes is not enough time for the Justice to make a determination on the issues in front of them. What then? Usually when there is not enough time for a Justice to make a determination in morning chambers the matter is sent to a “special application”. These special applications can be 1 hour, 2 hours, full-days, multi-day or what we call viva voce (with live evidence).

Everything other than the viva voce special applications rely on Affidavit evidence only to make a determination on the issues. The larger issue is availability of these special applications. It is May 2014 and we are advised that, at the time of posting this blog, that special applications were booking into early 2015. The old adage is correct – the wheels of justice do move slow.