Minutes of the April 8th, 2003 conference call

The teleconference was chaired by Frédéric Pelletier and begun at 12h10, Montreal time.

The following members attended: Suzan Baer, Edna Brewster, Diane Lutes, Jennifer Jordan, Rick Leech, Denis Le May, Jane McDonald, René-Luc Morin and Ruth Rintoul. Martin Felsky joined towards 12h30.

The agenda for this meeting was set as follows:
1- A new CCC member: René-Luc Morin, from Irosoft;
2- Follow-up to our last meeting;
3- A new preliminary version of our Word template;
4- Discussion about the multiple-level citations problem.

***

1- A new CCC member: René-Luc Morin, from Irosoft

The Commitee welcomes another new member, Mr. René-Luc Morin, which briefly introduces himself. Co-owner of Montreal-based Irosoft, Mr. Morin is involved in many law-related document managing projects. He has managed major projects for Justice Canada, Justice Québec, SOQUIJ and Carswell-Yvon Blais among others. Furthermore, René-Luc is responsible for the production of our Word template.

2- Follow-up to our last meeting

Frédéric Pelletier asseses the coming developments following decisions taken at our last meeting.

a-Neutral citation implementation in Ontario and Québec.

In Ontario, Daniel Poulin has proposed to meet with Justice Kiteley, along with other members of the Committee. Jane McDonald would like to join in as a Carswell representative and says that she will be in Toronto several days in the next two weeks, thus it would be useful to hold the meeting during this period. Ruth indicates that a QL representative in Toronto will also be present.

In Quebec, some steps have been made to arrange a meeting with Louise Roy, associate deputy-minister at the Direction générale des services de justice for Justice Québec. Daniel Poulin, Frédéric Pelletier and Denis LeMay will meet her along with representatives from Carswell (Charmian Harvey), QL (Stéphanie Briand), and possibly other interested parties.

b-Implementation of the Guide

Every Canadian superior court will be contacted next week in order to remind them of the existence of the Guide and to ask them what will be their position pertaining its implementation.

A companion document to the Guide's implementation will be available shortly for circulation among our Committee. It will be a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and will be based on questions received by the Committee since the Summer 2002's consultation phase.

A draft resolution for the next annual CALL conference will be ready shortly. It is agreed that it will be drafted by Daniel and Rick, taking the text of the 1999 resolution on Neutral citation as a model. Denis Le May will bring his expert contribution for the final wording. Rick will move it and the seconder will be a CALL member that is independent from our Committee.

Jennifer Jordan informs the Committee that the Guide is now implemented in British Columbia. Rick Leech reasserts that implementation in Alberta is almost done. He adds that he will be authorised to provide the Committee with the Alberta WordPerfect templates, so we will be able to use it as a starting point to provide WP templates to other Canadian courts.

3- A new preliminary version of our Word template

René-Luc Morin introduces the new preliminary version of the Word template, and makes an overview of main modifications brought to the first version.

It is understood that mandatory and optional elements must be presented more clearly, and that some bugs have to be fixed. Other comments will also be taken into account. René-Luc thinks that in the next few days he can provide, with the help of Frédéric, an English version that will be corrected and free of bugs.

4- Discussion about the multiple-level citations problem

Ruth presents the multiple-level citations problem, which happens whenever the author of a decision cites an author, which then cites another author, and there is no way to be sure which piece of text belongs to which author. Frédéric Pelletier prepared a document that illustrates the problem with the help of an example provided by Ruth. This document presents two solutions that would entail the addition of the author's names before or after each citation or paragraph.

The Committee members agree that the issue is important, but a majority considers that it is essentially a drafting problem. Any rule pertaining this issue would have to take too many variables into consideration, would be difficult to apply and could be considered too intrusive with regard to the judges writing styles.

It is agreed that the Committee could encourage judges to draft their citations with this concern in mind. This could be achieved informally, whitout having to issue a particular standard on this matter. Furthermore, it would be wise to embed in our templates some styles that would allow the labelization of different levels of citation, e.g. "citation1", "citation2" and "citation3". Thus, judges would have a simple and yet efficient tool that could be used as they see fit, without interferring with their writing styles.

The meeting ended at 13h15 with a Shakespeare's citation by Denis Le May.

***

The next conference call will take place Tuesday, April 29th at 12h30, Mtl time. Members will receive the usual reminder by e-mail the day before.

[Previous meeting]

[Next meeting]