Crown fast-tracks ex-deputy premier Nathalie Normandeau's trial
No preliminary inquiry for 7 accused means case will go straight to trial
Quebec's former deputy premier will stand trial earlier than expected, now that the Crown prosecutor has chosen to fast-track the case involving her and six co-accused.
Nathalie Normandeau was arrested last year, along with a former Quebec Liberal minister, Marc-Yvan Côté, Normandeau's former chief of staff, Bruno Lortie, two former Parti Québécois staffers and several figures associated with the engineering firm Roche, now known as Norda Stelo.
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Prosecutor Claude Dussault informed a Quebec courtroom Monday that the Crown will proceed by direct indictment, which allows the case to go directly to trial.
Dussault withdrew charges of conspiracy, corruption, breach of trust and bribery and introduced a new set of slightly amended charges against Normandeau and her co-accused, allowing him to make use of the faster process.
No preliminary inquiry
A preliminary inquiry, a hearing at which the court determines whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial to proceed, had been scheduled to begin June 5.
It had been estimated to take five weeks.
Normandeau's defence lawyer, Maxime Roy, had intended at that stage to argue that there was insufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.
"We consider ourselves unsatisfied with the answers, or absence of answers, that has been provided today," Roy said of the Crown's decision to proceed directly to trial.
The court is expected to set a trial date next September.
With files from Catou MacKinnon and Radio-Canada's Yannick Bergeron