EDMONTON - The Sherwood Park Courthouse is being given a dubious title by lawyers and a judge, after a recent drunk driving case had to be thrown out because it took more than a year to go to trial.
Judge L. J. Burgess, who was presiding over the case said, "we have, what is certainly for a community this size, easily the worst courthouse in the province."
His sentiment is being echoed by others who work there.
"It's really mind-boggling that a community of this size," lawyer David Phillips says, "has a courthouse in a strip mall. It's baffling, really."
"There's not much of a secret, this is the worst courthouse in the province of Alberta," agrees another lawyer, Peter Court.
Court explains that the current Sherwood Park courthouse was meant to be a temporary facility when it was built in 1980. Thirty years later, though, it's still being used - despite Sherwood Park's population approximately doubling in size.
And that has posed some challenges when it comes to space.
"Judges come in the same door as the prisoners, share a same hallway...I know of lawyers that interview their clients in the bathroom," Court says.
He believes that the larger concern is that the province is not funding the court system properly.
"You're finding that there's inadequate staffing, there's an inadequate appointment of judges to handle the workload for a population of 100,000 people."
"You can't even get a trial date in Sherwood Park in 2013 for a criminal matter," Court reveals. "So what does that say about the importance of the judicial system, the importance of law in the community?"
The fact that an accused would have to wait until 2014 may mean that charges for serious offences like assaults and break and enters could also be dropped. However, it could impact those who simply need a trial to clear their name, as well.
"They're going to have to wait for a year. The result is they might have bail conditions that they'll be under for a year. It could affect their work, their travel, educational opportunities," explains lawyer David Phillips.
It could also affect those charged under the province's new impaired driving law, which takes away their license until the matter's resolved in court.
"So...you might have people pleading guilty, not necessarily on the merits, but because they can't get a court date."
Alberta's Solicitor General, Jonathan Denis, insists that when it comes to the issue of new courthouses, Sherwood Park is at the top of his list.
That doesn't mean much to Court. "We hear that perennially," he says, "that it's the number one ask, that it's the next courthouse in Alberta to be built. But it's getting a little tired."
Denis maintains, though, that he's committed and his goal is to have a new courthouse in Sherwood Park by 2016.
Until then, there are plans to upgrade a holding cell early in the new year.
For Phillips, anything other than building a new courthouse would be a band-aid solution.
"We need the government to say that they are absolutely going to build a courthouse, where it's going to be built, when it's going to be built, and that they're going to commit to staffing it properly."
With files from Jenna Bridges, Global News
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2013.