Minutes of the March 31, 2005 conference call

The teleconference was chaired by Frédéric Pelletier and began at 12:00, Montreal time.

The following members attended: Suzan Baer, Edna Brewster, Anne L. Chesnutt, Michael Cowle, Jennifer Jordan, Lucie Laguë, Rick Leech, Denis Le May, Michèle Lesage, Grace Mackness, Ruth Rintoul and Elizabeth M.A. Turgeon.

The agenda was set as follows:
1- Short announcements and updates;
2- New draft on case naming.

The notes for these minutes were taken by Suzan, Rick and Frédéric.

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1- Short announcements and updates

Replacement of the Carswell representative

Recently, Grace Mackness was proposed by Jane McDonald as the new Carswell representative on our Committee. Grace is the Manager of Case Law Acquisition and Research at Carswell and her department is responsible for, among other things, Carwell's case naming standards.

The Committee wishes to thank Jane for her participation, and welcomed Grace as a new member.

Implementation of our current standards

Frédéric reported that the neutral citation standard has been implemented for all decisions rendered as of January 2005 by the Quebec Court of Appeal. SOQUIJ now assigns the short style of cause and the citation core, and adds these elements at the top of the decision prepared by the Court. SOQUIJ has been mandated to do the same for the Superior Court and the Cour du Québec by January 1, 2006.

Frédéric also reported that the Supreme Court of Canada will soon add a standard cover sheet to the electronic versions of its judgments rendered as of January 2005. This cover sheet will contain all the mandatory elements of the Guide to Uniform Preparation of Judgments, in the right order.

Jennifer and Frédéric will later report on their current plan to move forward with the implementation of our current standards.

Anne reported that the Family Division of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia will change its tribunal ID from NSSF to NSSC, so that all decisions rendered by the NSSC will have the same tribunal ID. This is in line with the Committee's recommendations.

CanLII citation

Denis brought to the Committee's attention that the assignment of a permanent CanLII citation to each decision posted on the CanLII website represents a great step forward.

2- New draft on case naming

Six members of the Committee issued thorough comments on the new draft on case naming (download [PDF]). Based on these comments, Frédéric selected a few key issues that can be discussed within the timeframe set for this first conference call about the draft. The Committee agreed to let Frédéric include the other comments in a next version. The typos, obvious errors and inconsistencies will simply be corrected, and where opinions diverge, grey shaded narrative boxes will be inserted in the draft to help streamline future discussions.

The following topics were discussed.

1. Numbering

The Committee agreed that the document should be numbered with a flat hierarchy (1, 1.1., 1.1.2., etc.) and with paragraph numbers. ISO 2145 could be taken into account.

2. Rule 3 - Unique short style of cause

The committee agreed that the rule that mandates a consistent and stable short style of cause from the main trial proceeding to the last appeal must be maintained, even if it could entail some difficulties when secretaries do not have the information from the first trial decision. The Committee is confident that over time, the short style of cause will be well prepared by trial courts and that this information will be made available to secretaries in subsequent proceedings. However, the present rule should be modified to indicate that the unique short style of cause is a goal to be reached.

3. Rule 2(f) - Definition of "Criminal Proceeding"

This definition should include all penal, quasi-criminal and criminal proceedings, as long as the Crown is the prosecutor.

4. Rule 7 & 8 - Use of a comma or parentheses for the abreviation "Re"

The Committee was almost equally divided about this issue, and good arguments can be found on both sides. On the one hand, the comma is easier to type and is a standard way of indicating that the "Re" is normally placed at the beginning of a term. On the other hand, the use of parentheses allows for fewer format variations to remember since it is consistent with the way descriptive terms are added after names of municipalities (see Rule 9(d)). Since no consensus was reached, the Committee agreed to postpone the decision. Frédéric will include the pros and cons of each option in the next draft as a discussion point. If no consensus is reached at the next meeting, then it is understood that every Committee member will have an opportunity to vote, whether or not they are present at this meeting.

5. Rule 8(2) - Jurisdiction indication

The majority of the Committee members considered that the jurisdiction indication by a standard two-letter code is more convenient than to using the jurisdiction's full name. The rule should remain as it is now (see item 9 for modifications to Appendix "A").

6. Rule 9(b)(iii) - Union names

There was a consensus among Committee members that it would be quite hard to devise and implement simple rules to consistently abbreviate union names. After discussing many options including adding a schedule listing actual union names, it was agreed that the current rule should be maintained, with unions treated like any other organization: the short style of cause contains the full name of the union as it is presented in the decision (i.e. in ex. 41 of Appendix D); when an affiliation is clearly identified as a separate entity (as in ex. 21, "... affiliated with ..."), then this affiliation is omitted. Examples and further explanations placed near the rule will help clarify things. Denis will also look at cataloguing rules by the Library or Congress for more guidance and will then report to Frédéric.

7. Rule 9(d) - Municipalities

Committee members agreed that a specific rule was needed for municipal bodies. However, there was confusion as to when the rule should be applied, as indicated by the various responses received about the draft guidelines. Frédéric indicated that the draft applied the rule only to actual municipal bodies and not to other bodies that could be associated with a municipality. He will clarify this in the rule and include examples that highlight the difference, e.g. counter examples.

8. Rule 10(c) - Addition of a descriptive term for persons acting on behalf of another

The question of whether or not to include a descriptive term in parentheses to indicate a representative capacity was discussed and various views in favour and against this were put forward. Members agreed that these terms did not add anything to the present guideline's main purpose of assigning a simple case title. With reservations from some members, not including these terms and to specifically indicating this in the rule was agreed upon.

9. Appendix "A" - Jurisdictions names and codes

The two exceptions mentioned in the second paragraph with regard to the departure of YT and NT jurisdictions from ISO 3166-2:CA in their neutral citation's tribunal ID do correspond to reality as mentioned in the current draft. However, it was agreed that our Committee should encourage the use of the ISO standard by including current ISO codes in the table, not the exceptions. The second paragraph will be reformulated and transformed into an informative note at the bottom of the table, stating that YT and NT use other abbreviations for neutral citation purposes.

10. Appendix "C" - Municipality names

Frédéric noted that it is not possible to designate every municipal name in a schedule, and chose to provide examples from various jurisdictions in the draft. The alternative to this, as suggested by Daniel, would be to have more specific rules on how to assign these names. Adding more specific rules, including illustrations of the various types of municipal bodies from different jurisdictions and removing this Appendix was agreed upon. Wording could also be added to the rule to suggest that users prepare lists of municipal names for their jurisdiction from available sources, e.g. provincial/territorial government websites or the Canadian Almanac and Directory.

11. Appendix "D" - Examples

Daniel suggested in his written comments that examples be included with the text for each rule. Members agreed that including all the necessary examples would make the rules too difficult to read. They did agree that one or two examples be reproducedd in the text and that the rules be cross referenced to the Appendix in both electronic (e.g. hypertext links) and print forms (an index or arrangement of the examples by rule and/or paragraph number).

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The other issues will be discussed later. A new version of the draft will be prepared and posted on the CCC listserv by mid-May, hopefully before the annual Canadian Association of Law Libraries conference. A call for availability for our next conference call will be posted with this new version.

The meeting ended at 14:00.

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