Supreme Court of Canada Soon to Make Litigants' Filings Available Online

Simon Fodden of Slaw, reports:

I’m blogging from the LexUM conference Conférence Internet pour le droit / Law Via the Internet Conference, live. At the moment, Justice Bastarache is telling us that the Supreme Court of Canada is planning to make factums available online next year, at least in some measure. He is explaining all of the issues that the Court is currently considering, as it struggles to develop a workable policy concerning the electronic publication of these documents. The Court has not yet decided whether and how to “clean” the files of sensitive business or personal information; they are still consulting, but a decision on these various matters is “imminent.” The Court, then, is convinced that the values of openness and access to justice must outweigh all other interests in principle, at least.

As an aside, Professor Fodden taught my first year Property class at Osgoode (Pierson v. Post and foxes and finders, oh my....).

The Court's move toward open, documentary access online will clearly be welcomed by the press, counsel, litigants and lower courts throughout Canada.

Currently, lawyers who act on cases with legal issues similar to those pending before the SCC have great difficulty obtaining details of the specific arguments to be considered. On one recent occasion, we had to make calls across Canada to obtain some of this information from friendly counsel.

It will be of real benefit once these court filings are readily available online.

Slowly, but surely, Canada's court system appears to be moving into the 21st century.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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