In the course of taking applications for legal aid, the court worker often gets facts and has discussions with the accused, and is seen as…. In some cases, they receive confidential information, and they are viewed — in this adversarial system we have — as being on the side of the accused.
The justice committees are neither on the side of an offender nor a victim but there to reconcile the interests of the community as a whole. The Crown Attorney’s office, some years ago, refused to divert offenders in one community until the court worker, who was heavily involved in the justice committee, resigned from that function. So although we would like to expand the duties of the court workers, as was pointed out the judges and the Crown
attorneys who allow for the diversions will not agree to that.