OHTA.ca

Hello all,

very interesting site. very entertaining. I have tried to do a search for my question, but have not found anything. sorry if its been posted before.

I was under the assumptiong that I could designate any person to be my agent in court. i.e. if i am unable to attend I could ask my father/brother/sister/genius monkey to appear on my behalf.

I was told last week that in ontario there has now been a law passed saying that I must only use a registered agent to appear in court.

1.

Is this true

2.

who is a registerd agent? does this include all lawyers under the bar, or do they have to be specifically registered to appear in a traffic court?

I also have another seperate question:

3.

I am going to appear before a justice to request a ticket I have been convicted upon be reopened. My reason was that I requested from the crown that my trial be rescheduled due to a death in the family.

The crown never replied to me after this, and was unavailable when I tried to call and fax. Unknown to me the trial was rescheduled and passed (since I did not attend I was convicted). I never recieved anything in the mail, and never received a phone call. However I also neglected to repeatedly inquire as to a possible new date (I called twice, but was unable to find the crown). My question : is there any chance of the justice reopening the case based on these circumstances?

(as a bit of background on this: the ticket in question is related to failing to move where possible into another lane when passing an emergency vehicle: hta 159.1 (2) ; so in my eyes I would like the chance to fight this ticket - I also feel that I could NOT have safely moved to another lane since a car was in it)

finally, one last questions:

4.

15 days passed since my conviction, even before I received the notice of conviction - am I still eligible to file for appeal (provided, of course that I am unable to reopen)?

sorry about the length of this. my thanx to all who provide some input.

Cheers,

Silenthunder

silenthunder wrote:Hello all,

very interesting site. very entertaining. I have tried to do a search for my question, but have not found anything. sorry if its been posted before.

I was under the assumptiong that I could designate any person to be my agent in court. i.e. if i am unable to attend I could ask my father/brother/sister/genius monkey to appear on my behalf.

I was told last week that in ontario there has now been a law passed saying that I must only use a registered agent to appear in court.

1.

Is this true

2.

who is a registerd agent? does this include all lawyers under the bar, or do they have to be specifically registered to appear in a traffic court?

To answer your Questions 1 and 2.

Yes, you do require a registered court agent such as a professional paralegal to attend for you in court.

To contact a local paralegal to help you defend your ticket in court you can use the Contact an Agent Form at the bottom of this site.

#1 Don't mean to step on toes but you don't need a registered court agent:

Bill 14 created a licensing requirement for paralegals...As long as defending someone is not your main business or main employment AND you are not receiving any benefit (money or otherwise) you can still defend them. The exemption to the licensing requirement is under the Law Society Act, By-law #4, Part 5, Section 30, sub 5 (pg 24). Print this and have it in your back pocket in case you get challenged in court

#3. You have a great chance for a reopening. Normally someone has to appear in court to request the reschedule (because it may not be granted). You should state that the trial was rescheduled but you did not get notice of it. Also have the dates and times when you called and a good reason why you didn't use the offence number to track the status of it. Also a good explanation of what you mean by "couldn't find the crown".

#4 An appeal is unlikely, you need an error in law or error in fact. Focus on the reopening. You can find general info on reopenings and appeals on my site (Step 5-->appeals).

If you are paying some body to defend you in court then you do require a registered court agent such as a paralegal.

But if you just want your dad etc to go in for you, then I would contact your court office and get more details about how that works now.

I had another question (wasn't sure if it deserved a new thread...)

if I had a (father/brother/sister/helper monkey) appear in court for me, would I need to submit a legal 'statement' to be used as evidence of my testimony?

I realise it would be a very stupid thing to do this instead of appearing for myself - but I'm in a situation where I am very infrequently in ontario, and my ability to get back here on any given day is nil (I'm a medical student - we have no say in our schedules - for the most part)

Cheers,

Silenthunder

You would have to submit an affadavit if you can't be there for the reopening request.

When it comes to your trial, basically your defence is that it wasn't safe to change lanes (you of course slowed down!). You have to testify to this, you cannot have someone testify for you.

You can still pay an agent who is not a lawyer or para-legal to represent you in criminal cases. The Crimnal Code is federal law. The law society only deas with provincial matters. Federal laws trump provincial ones.