David Bartlett, lawyer, fighting New Brunswick courthouse closure

A lawyer from Charlotte County plans on filing a legal motion to try and stop the closure of courthouse in St. Stephen.

"There isn't really any process that we can get our hands on to challenge. So we're going to file a motion of some kind, an application very shortly that will try and deal with the sort of imprecision of the whole thing. To try to get the court's assistance to identify how this decision got made and whether indeed it was made appropriately," said David Bartlett.

Bartlett says an order by the attorney general to the chief justice is lacking in this case.

The announcement to close St. Stephen courthouse and three others — , Sussex, Grand Falls and Grand Manan Island — was done during the provincial budget, which is not a typical place to announce decisions, he says.

Joan Despres has worked in victim services in St. Stephen for 25 years. She says the loss of the courtroom is a hardship because it will force witnesses — including children, seniors and victims of domestic abuse — to travel 90 minutes to Saint John.

Concern for seniors

"Seniors have told me, they have come to my table, they've told me they can't possibly travel that distance and perhaps they won't even bother reporting a crime," said Despres.

The courthouse in St. Stephen has stopped scheduling anything beyond October.

CBC News has learned this is the last week St. Stephen Judge Henrik Tonning will travel to Grand Manan Island for satellite court. After that, the service will be done, meaning Islanders will have to travel at least three hours to get to the courthouse in Saint John.