Minutes of the October 30, 2008 Meeting

Attendees: Linda Cleveland-Thompson, Michael Cowle, Louise Hamel, Anne Van Iderstine, Jennifer Jordan, Mich�le Lesage, Grace Mackness, Fr�d�ric Pelletier, Alisa Posesorski, Ruth Rintoul and Elizabeth M.A. Turgeon.

The teleconference is chaired by Fr�d�ric Pelletier. It begins at 13:00 EDT.

Agenda:

• Best practices for decisions distribution

The notes for these minutes are taken by Ruth Rintoul and Fr�d�ric Pelletier.

***

On October 17, Fr�d�ric circulated 2 documents, one of which serves as a basis for our discussion today: Best Practices for the Distribution of Decisions

We will now discuss the substance of the rules, which will be integrated in the consolidation as new sub-headings under Section "6 - Distribution".

Proposed wording changes

Proposed changes to some headings and to paras. 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9 were unanimously accepted, mostly as presented in Frederic's document.

Reference to CJC documents - para. 6

Michael points out that there are 2 CJC documents that should be mentioned in this section. Louise suggests wording such as "Important sources �.. include �" and a bullet list of the 2 titles, so that readers understand that more may be added in future. Consensus: Agreed.

Official vs redacted versions - para. 11

The issue here is to determine what would be the best recommended practice in regard to the handling of redacted versions of decisions in the court record. Should the court keep the redacted version in the record, or only the non redacted version? Jennifer describes the BC experience:

• At the BC Court of Appeal, where redaction is required, only the redacted version is released by the Court, to parties and for general distribution.
• At the BC Supreme Court it is still a problem. Judges will release a non-redacted version to the parties, then a redacted version will be prepared for the website and for distribution. Policy development is under way at this time. Judges have been trained in the writing of anonymized decisions and they are becoming more sensitive to privacy needs.
• Criminal files are not accessible by the public, with the exception of the indictment and the Reasons for Decision. The Reasons are redacted when necessary.

Jennifer opines that the best practice would be to keep two separate versions in the court record when a redacted version needs to be prepared by the court, and to clearly label this redacted version in the court record as the version that can be distributed to the public. Consensus: Agreed.

The wording of para. 11 will be reviewed but the substance of the rule will remain the same.

***

This concludes our discussions. The standards on distribution will be embedded in the Distribution section of the consolidation, which will be re-circulated for final approval, with the appended case naming guidelines. We will hold another meeting if there are issues that can't be dealt with by e-mail.

The meeting ends at 13:35 EDT.