Government lawyers are appealing a judge's decision to toss out corruption charges against six Toronto police officers.
The members of the city's drug squad were charged with corruption in 1999, but the charges were dropped after taking more than eight years to get to trial.
Judge Ian Nordheimer stayed the charges, saying the court found that witnesses started to lose memory of the event, documents were found to have been destroyed and a complicated database of pertinent documents added more work than assistance to the proceedings.
However, he warned the often complex nature of the case cannot, however, "be used as an excuse to provide the Crown with a blank cheque against the bank of time."
The Crown claims Nordheimer seriously erred in concluding there had been a violation of the right to be tried within a reasonable time. Lawyers are already scoffing, suggesting the Crown is grasping at straws to cover what appears to be a serious systemic failure.
At Queen's Park, the opposition is calling for a full public inquiry, saying the bungling of the case has shaken the public confidence.
"This is a very serious matter," said NDP justice critic Peter Kormos. "The credibility, the very foundations of our criminal justice system are in question as a result of the staying of these charges... That can't be allowed to happen."
Conservative Leader John Tory lashed out at Premier Dalton McGuinty directly, accusing him of mismanaging the justice system.
"We can't have the McGuinty government hiding behind an appeal when there are fundamental questions in this and other cases about why the justice system is totally bogged down," Tory said. "Is there wrongdoing going on where people are delaying cases deliberately?"
The lawyer whose complaints triggered the probe in 1999 believes the government's appeal will just bury the truth of what happened even longer - and he's been ready for it to come out for a long time.
"I believe the Attorney General owes the people of Ontario and Canada an answer," Edward Sapiano told CTV Toronto on Friday.
Sapiano says the Crown and the government knew the case was going off the rails and cites years of foot-dragging by the prosecution.
"It's like a slow train coming down the track that the attorney general saw or ought to have seen a mile down the road," he said, "yet they still failed to take the baby off the track. Unmitigated negligence."
With a report from CTV Toronto's Paul Bliss
