Article content
The lawyer representing a man accused of femicide says he can’t contact his client, who is detained in a notorious Ottawa jail.
Appearing in court on Friday, defence lawyer Daniel Nugent said he’d been unsuccessful in his attempts to speak with Michael Zabarylo, who faces a second-degree murder charge.
Zabarylo is accused of killing his wife Jennifer Zabarylo, in what Ottawa police allege was a femicide. The force defined femicide in a news release as “occurring in the context of intimate partner violence, which is one of many forms of misogynist killings.”
Article content
Zabarylo has remained in custody since being arrested.
“It’s been several days now, that he’s been detained,” Nugent told the court. “I have not been able to review any disclosure or receive any further instructions from him, despite the fact that I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting with him since Wednesday.”
Nugent said his requests to meet with his client had not garnered a response from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre on Innes Road.
“The only option I have at this point is to bring him to the courthouse,” he said, threatening to bring forward a habeas corpus application, which is used when a person claims they are being wrongfully detained, in violation of their Charter rights. A habeas corpus is brought before a judge who determines if the conditions of their detainment are lawful or not.
“In the meantime, I’d like to see him in person at the courthouse,” he said. “What’s typically done is really irrelevant at this point.”
Justice of the peace Meredith Porter said bringing clients to the courthouse to meet with their lawyer was a “problematic practice.”
The Crown typically doesn’t facilitate meetings between the accused and their clients, but Nugent said he wasn’t concerned with normal procedure.
Article content
“Typically, counsel are able to schedule meetings with their clients at the jail,” he said.
Porter said she recognized the lawyer’s concerns and difficulties, and said it’s not the first time this issue has come before the court.
However, she said, the court can only call for an accused person to be brought to the courthouse if it’s “necessary for him to appear in court in person,” she said. “But I am acknowledging your frustrations.”
A request for comment from Ontario’s Office of the Solicitor General, which oversees provincial jails, was not immediately returned.
Recommended from Editorial
Share this article in your social network