Canadian Lawyer

8 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m C ity of Montreal chief Crown prosecutor Julie Provost laughs when she recalls the trip that she and a dozen other Quebec legal and health-care professionals and bureaucrats took to Toronto in 2006 to see the Queen City's mental health court in action. "Everybody went," says Provost, who has been with Montreal's Crown attor- neys' office for 13 years. "It was like this big, multi-disciplinary expedition. But we learned a lot." Once home, Provost was tapped to spearhead the creation of a similar vol- untary social program in Montreal that would link the justice and health and social services networks and provide close monitoring and support for people facing municipal court-level criminal and penal charges — but who show signs of mental health problems — as an alternative to incarceration. "We didn't want to reinvent the wheel," says Provost. "We adapted the Toronto model to our realities here [and] the differences in the organization of our courts and health services." Dubbed the PAJ-SM program (for Programme d'accompagnement jus- tice-santé mentale), the new municipal court opened in Montreal in May 2008. In the 10 years since then, it has blossomed into a vibrant legal entity in which nine Montreal municipal court judges and dozens of prosecuting and defence attorneys work together — unlike in traditional adversarial-minded courts — to rehabilitate rather than punish people accused of crimes with maximum penalties of six months in jail or a $50,000 fine. Held weekday afternoons year-round in room R-10 of the municipal court- house next to city hall in Old Montreal, the court handles about a dozen cases a day and up to 1,200 of the roughly 14,000 criminal cases the city gets every year, the most of any municipal court in Canada. "We don't have a lot of data on rates of recidivism," says Provost. "But my gut feeling is we are doing a very good job. I've seen some real successes here and everybody believes in it." That faith is spreading to other municipal courts across Quebec. There are now 11 mental health courts in operation, with a 12th in the works. Many of the courts have their own unique touches. \ AT L A N T I C \ C E N T R A L \ N O RT H \ W E S T REGIONAL WRAP-UP Mental health courts on the rise in Quebec C E N T R A L Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée tabled a bill in early December aimed at improving access to the province's justice system, much of which was connected to mental health laws. It's time to rank… THE TOP CIVIL LITIGATION AND CRIMINAL LAW BOUTIQUES To make your picks, complete the survey at canadianlawyermag.com/surveys VOTING IS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 5 Untitled-10 1 2018-01-23 12:53 PM MATHIEU BELANGER /REUTERS

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