E/CN.4/2006/7/Add.2 page 7 provincial governments. Justices of the peace (appointed by the provincial Attorney-General) also play a limited role in criminal matters, but no trials take place before them. Judgements of the superior courts are subject to appeal to the provincial court of appeals and to the Supreme Court of Canada. 13. The Criminal Code allows bail hearings to take place either before a justice of the peace or a provincial court judge. In some jurisdictions (e.g. British Columbia and Québec) bail hearings always take place before a provincial court judge, while in other jurisdictions (e.g. Ontario) they take place mostly before a justice of the peace. Justices of the peace are not necessarily lawyers. 3. The Crown (i.e. prosecutorial services) 14. Both at the federal level and in each province, the Minister of Justice is at the same time the Attorney-General, i.e. the head of the prosecutorial service (referred to as “the Crown” in the context of criminal proceedings). Individual prosecutors, called “Crown counsel”, act as agents of the (respectively federal or provincial) Attorney-General and under his or her direction. The common practice, however, is for the Attorney-General to grant broad discretion to Crown counsel in criminal prosecutions. In addition to Crown counsel who are its employees, the Attorneys-General also have recourse to per diem counsel to act as prosecutors. 15. Crown counsel will review all charges laid by the police and proceed with prosecution where they estimate that (a) there is a reasonable prospect of conviction, and (b) prosecution is in the public interest. In applying the latter criterion, Crown counsel will exercise prosecutorial discretion and take into account both general prosecution policies and the unique circumstances of the individual case, including victims, offenders, and local conditions. 4. The police 16. The police, i.e. the RCMP or, in Ontario and Québec, the Ontario Provincial Police and the Sûreté du Québec respectively, and in large urban centres the municipal police, investigate and lay charges where they believe on reasonable grounds that an offence has been committed. 5. Legal aid 17. Responsibility for legal aid in criminal matters is shared between the federal Government under its authority to make criminal laws and to protect the rights enshrined in the Charter, and the provinces under their constitutional authority for the administration of justice. Similarly, responsibility for legal aid in immigration matters is shared between the federal Government and the provinces. The federal Government contributes funds to the provinces and territories for criminal legal aid through a series of agreements with the provinces and territories. Until 1990-91, criminal legal aid costs were shared in equal parts by the federal Government and the provinces and territories. Since then, however, the federal share has dropped to approximately 35 per cent. As a consequence of the shared responsibility for legal aid, the way legal aid is administered varies from province to province.