Saying that they'll both be ready to "take a position" makes me think they're working out a plea agreement.
Could be. I'm a Canadian law fag, and Judges love when the Crown and defense work together to create plea agreements and sentencing submissions.
Nader doesn't have to take the plea agreement even if his lawyer strongly suggests he does, so my heart goes out to the defense. If he rejects the deal then they have to go to trial if the Crown doesn't opt to drop the charges.
Lawyers aren't allowed to fire clients. Clients can fire us at any time. We can only get rid of a problematic client or one who does not pay by documenting their failure to pay or take our instructions over a period of time (usually found in our professional standards regulations), finding another lawyer to take them on, and then applying to the Court to be removed from the file.
A quick Google suggests Nader's lawyer is in private practice and not a public defender but hard to know for sure as private lawyers sometimes take public contract work.
Funnily enough though, my search returned an article in the Le Quotidien in French about another case his lawyer did. She was defending a woman on two counts of manslaughter in connection with a fatal fire in Gatineau back in March of last year (trial began in March of last year but the fire happened in Aug 2019) and the accused didn't show up (just like Nader) on go day and the lawyer's explanation was the woman was sick and had called that morning to say she needed to go to hospital.
The Crown and judge weren't having it because the accused had missed several other important court dates and the judge issued an arrest warrant and they went and got her ass from the hospital. If only Cokey would get the same treatment.
I hope delaying trials isn't the strategy his lawyer Annabelle Routhier depends on as her go to tactic because that conflicts with the Supreme Court of Canada's finding in the Jordan case that criminal matters must be dealt with in 18 or 32 months depending on the level of court the matter is heard in. She can delay all she wants and try to reach the Jordan deadline to get the case dismissed (because going on would violate the constitutional right to a speedy trial) but that only works if the defense can show the delay was all or mostly the Crown's fault. Sounds like the Crown has been ready to roll on Nader's file for awhile and he and his lawyer are the ones delaying it so they aren't gonna win a Jordan application...and purposely delaying a trial can be viewed as throwing the administration of justice into disrepute.
Tsk, tsk, Me Routhier.
Unless she is doing her best and Nader is a fucking nightmare client, in which case, have a drink on me Me Routhier.
