In a budget where the City of Weyburn, area citizens and municipalities were looking for some real tax relief and sensible spending by the province, the city was given a backhanded slap with the news of the closure of the Queen's Bench court and all court services located in the city's courthouse.

The news wasn't announced in the budget address along with all the hoopla of lowered income taxes and the expansion of the PST; no one in the community knew about it until the next day as the news leaked out.

To many in the legal community, along with area residents who utilize the court services here, this seemed to be snuck in the back door, with little or no explanation why. When pressed for an answer, Justice Minister Chris Axworthy said the closure was a budget decision, and came down to the apparent lack of use of the court building.

Despite there being a backlog of cases currently, in both provincial and Queen's Bench, Axworthy is adamant Weyburn simply doesn't have the traffic of court cases to warrant spending the money to keep it open.

One local lawyer in Queen's Bench matters, Greg Bobbitt, pointed out that on March 28, the day before handing down the budget, there were no less than 19 cases dealt with in the morning session of Queen's Bench, with some of his trials and pretrial consultations set as far ahead as September.

As a major centre in the southeast, Weyburn's courthouse serves not only the city police here, but many of the surrounding towns which long ago lost their own judges and court services, including Fillmore, Stoughton, Radville and Yellow Grass, plus all of the rural areas served by the RCMP detachments in Weyburn, Radville, Fillmore, Milestone and Montmartre.

The range of services that will be lost to Weyburn is quite wide. Queen's Bench deals with any major criminal trial, including all jury trials, as well as matrimonial property matters, divorces, family law, maintenance and child support, estates and probate administration, adoptions and any order that relates to any of Saskatchewan's Statutes.

As sheriff and registrar, Wendy Dammann enforces all civil court orders, serves documents, is in charge of the jury for jury trials, and supervises provincial court.

The added high cost of accessing these services (which will now be located in Estevan, one hour's drive away), not to mention the inconvenience to citizens, lawyers and the police seems to make little to no difference in any way to the justice minister.

Perhaps the most galling aspect of this decision for both city and legal representatives was the total lack of consultation by the Justice department with the community. No one was asked their opinion, no alternatives or compromises were sought, and no one was even informed the decision was coming, one which will have a widespread impact on the community.

The citizens of Weyburn and area, city council, police department and legal community need to gather their voice together and lobby the justice minister, Finance Minister Eric Cline and Premier Roy Romanow to reconsider this decision, which will give a bare minimum of benefit to the government, and absolutely no benefit to Weyburn and area.

As lawyer Stafford Nimegeers eloquently stated, this decision shows the province has little to no confidence in Weyburn and surrounding community. It's time for the community to fight back with phone calls, letters, e-mails and personal representation to ensure a vital service is not lost to us. We deserve better treatment than this from our government. - G.N.