Minutes of the June 19, 2006 Conference Call

Attendees: Edna Brewster, Anne L. Van Iderstine, Michael Cowle, Jennifer Jordan, Lucie Laguë, Rick Leech, Frédéric Pelletier, Alisa Posesorski, Ruth Rintoul, Elizabeth M.A. Turgeon.

The teleconference is chaired by Frédéric Pelletier and begins at 13:04, Eastern Daylight Time.

The agenda is set as follows:

• Resuming the review of the draft on Uniform Case Naming Guidelines

The notes for these minutes were taken by Marie-Odile Désy.

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Review of the draft on Uniform Case Naming Guidelines

"5 Unique Short Style of Cause"

In the current draft of the document, there is a discussion box proposing to abolish the "Unique Short Style of Cause" rule which states that the short style of cause should be the same from the first judicial proceeding to the last appeal; this without reversing or changing the parties' names. Most members of the Committee agree that this rule would be hard to apply in some courts and that it is less useful than it used to be for keeping track of decisions rendered in the same case by different levels of courts. This change would be a significant departure from the CLIC rules.

After consulting the publisher's representatives, most of them agree that dealing with this change would not significantly affect their costs.

Thus, it is decided that the whole section 5 should be withdrawn from the guidelines. However, with regards to Crown criminal prosecutions, which are traditionally styled in the form "R. v. [accused]" throughout all levels of courts, an exception will be added in order to maintain this well-established and easy-to-follow practice.

"6 In rem Defendant – Property"

The Committee agrees that the rule should be clarified so that the descriptive terms (vessel, ship, or aircraft) are chosen from the decision's heading.

Also, the Committee decides that an example will be added where the definite article "The" should be kept in the official name.

"7 Application by a Foreign Country"

No comments were given on this particular section.

"8 Constitutional Reference"

This rule will apply to all references, be they constitutional or not. The definition of constitutional references will no longer be needed.

Also, the rule will be changed so that the two-letter code of a jurisdiction will be added after the name of an Act according to the province or territory from which the Act originates, and not according to the juridiction that initiated the reference.

"3.4 Persons representing others"

The issue of the addition of descriptors between brackets after names of represented persons, e.g. "bankrupt", "trustee" or "litigation guardian" is raised since this is a well established practice. After some discussions, the Committee concludes that, although it has some use for research purposes, the need to make the guidelines simple outweighs the possible benefits of this practice.

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The Committee has finished reviewing the document. A new version taking into account all modifications and comments will be made available shortly to all members.

The meeting ended at 14:00.

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