No love for the judges Tuesday. Or the lawyers.

No new money for legal aid in the provincial budget, which is what the Canadian Bar Association wanted.

Little political damage there. To voters, "legal aid" translates to "free taxpayerfunded lawyers for criminals."

But here's what could hammer the Liberals next election: another Max Rose case.

Max is a cancer survivor and was just 12 years old when his puppy was shot to death on Quadra Island in 2008. The man charged with killing the dog walked free last year because the case took too long to come to trial.

It was one of 109 cases in B.C., including 35 on Vancouver Island, tossed because of the logjam in the courts in 2011 - a logjam the Liberals were urged to break in Tuesday's budget.

Didn't happen. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon announced $237 million in new justice spending over three years, but most of it went elsewhere: the 216-cell expansion of the Surrey pre-trial centre, the 168 cops hired as part of the government's guns and gangs strategy, the new agency that will investigate police incidents in which death or serious injury occur.

There's $42 million for court and prosecution services, but that will just maintain the status quo, including the recent hiring of more sheriffs.

Instead of throwing more money at the $1.1billionayear justice system Tuesday, the Liberals tossed - no, hurled - the ball back at the courts.

"British Columbians expect and deserve a justice system that deals with matters fairly and efficiently - and we will be challenging the judiciary to work with us on broad, systemic changes to achieve that," Falcon told the legislature.

He was blunter with reporters.

"The system needs to change. I respect the fact that there's judicial independence. But you know what? The judges cannot hide behind that shield and say, 'We have no requirement to do things better.' "

"I don't think anyone in the justice system is hiding behind a thing," replied Sharon Matthews, the bar association's B.C. president. To say otherwise ignores reforms that have been occurring for the past decade.

Budget documents argued that adult criminal justice costs shot up by a third in six years even as crime rates plunged by the same proportion.

The same documents cited challenges including "the entrenched culture and traditions of the system [and] the interpretation of independence."

Which sounds like a frustrated government that blames unaccountable judges and lawyers for building a legal process that is being crushed by its own weight.

But those in the system argue the government contributed to the crisis by constantly nickel-and-diming the courts into constipation - most notably by not, until recently, replacing retiring provincial court judges. Even now the courts are staffed only to support 127 judges, not the full complement of 134.

The politicians hoped they had a cheap and effective solution in the use of roadside driving bans as an alternative to drinkingdriving prosecutions, which can account for up to 40 per cent of the cases in some courts. That idea suffered a setback in November when the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the roadside penalties, when coupled with an inadequate appeal process, were unconstitutional. The government has until June 30 to rewrite the rules.

That's one day before Vancouver lawyer Geoffrey Cowper, appointed by Premier Christy Clark this month to review the justice system, is due to report. A white paper on justice reform is to follow by September 2012.

Which is fine and dandy, but will be too late if the Canucks go on another Stanley Cup run and the clowns who ran amok last June get to torch downtown Vancouver again while still awaiting trial. And don't forget that the federal Conservatives' crime reforms are expected to clog the courts even more as mandatory minimum sentences rob prosecutors of a pre-trial bargaining chip.

A functioning justice system is one of the basic expectations of government. The public wants bad guys to be arrested, prosecuted and punished, quickly.

It's one of the pillars of faith on which society stands.

But when it takes a year to get a trial date, when there are at least 2,500 cases that have dragged on past their 18-month best-before date, people lose that faith.

A system that can't successfully prosecute a guy who shot a 12-year-old cancer survivor's puppy has failed miserably. Voters won't tolerate that.

jknox@timescolonist.com