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A Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law
The Canadian Citation Committee
Diane BOURQUE (Federation of Law Societies of Canada); Daniel BOYER (Canadian Association of Law Libraries); Edna BREWSTER (Saskatchewan Queen's Bench); Maria CECE (Ontario Court of Appeal); Martin FELSKY (Legal Research Network); Diane HANSON (Law Society of New Brunswick); Guy HUARD (CRDP, U. de Montréal); Jennifer JORDAN (Appeal Court of British Columbia); Denis LE MAY (U. Laval’s Library); Denis MARSHALL (CALL); Bruno MÉNARD* (CRDP, U. de Montréal); Micheline Monpetit (SOQUIJ) ; Daniel POULIN* (CRDP, U. de Montréal); Ruth RINTOUL (QL Systems); Linda SCOTT (Provincial Courts Library, Ministry of Justice of Alberta).
Note: MM. Daniel POULIN and Bruno MÉNARD respectively act as co-ordinator and secretary of the Committee.
Federation of Law Societies of Canada
Sponsors and Partners
Table of Content
Summary
Introduction
1. The origin of the standard's proposal
2. Why change a system that works?
… to meet new needs of the courts
… to facilitate the implementation of electronic research tools
… to guarantee a long term opening up of the Canadian market for legal information
The mandatory elements of the citation
The optional elements of the citation
5. The advantages of the citation standard
Annex 1: The Canadian Citation Committee
Annex 2: Questionnaire for the Neutral Citation Standard for the Case Law
Recently, a committee of the Canadian Judicial Council produced a standard for the preparation of judgments in electronic form. This standard, which recommended, among other things, the numbering of paragraphs, received a warm welcome from the judiciary. This acceptance opens the way to establish a second standard, this one enabling neutral and uniform case law citation. This new method of citation has three essential elements: the year of the decision, a tribunal identifier and an ordinal number attributed to the decision. Thus, for example, a decision emanating from a court of appeal could be cited as follows: 1998 BCCA 21. The most evident advantage of this approach is that the tribunal would assign this citation at the time the decision is rendered. This citation will be unique, complete, immediately available and permanent. This proposal is made in a context where other similar initiatives are being promoted around the world, notably in the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
The Committee soliciting your comments is composed of specialists from across Canada. Your co-operation is very important in order for the standard to meet the needs of Canada’s legal community.
In Canada as elsewhere, the citing of jurisprudence relies essentially on the reference to judicial decisions in paper format. Until recently, this way of doing things, although imperfect, did not really cause any problems. The recent appearance of digital media, Internet, CD-ROMs and others, reveals the limits of the traditional approach as it creates new needs.
More and more frequently, court decisions are publicly available in only a few hours without bearing an official reference. These only become accessible whenever they are published in a paper copy work many weeks, even many months later. Furthermore, some decisions will never be published in collections and will never have an official reference, even though they may be cited repeatedly. Without a common standard, new methods of citation will have to be introduced in order to serve the electronic publication world. In this respect, a uniform citation method for Canada presents, quite obviously, the advantage of simplicity. The proposed standard will also contribute to reinforcing the public nature of Canadian case law.
This document presents the progression that led to its drafting as well as the motivations behind the neutral citation standard proposal. A detailed description of the standard is set out. A summary of its benefits as well as a description of future steps for its adoption concludes this document. Of course, the results obtained from the consultation are of great importance in order to successfully develop this tool to better serve the needs of the Canadian legal community
A Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law
1. The origin of the standard's proposal[1] Various initiatives in legal citation have been undertaken in Canada for at least the past 20 years. More recently, in 1994, the Judges Computer Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council (CJC) started to develop a standard in the matter of preparing legal decisions. This standard sought to standardize the format of electronic documents produced by courts. This standard, adopted in May 1996, has enjoyed great success [CJC, 1996]. The vast majority of Canadian superior courts have now adopted it. It contained an embryo of a citation standard.
[2] Meanwhile, the American Bar Association (ABA) started to develop a neutral citation method. The ABA's motivations were numerous. Amongst those were: (1) the interest to develop a consistent citation mechanism for paper and electronic documents; (2) the will to favour the development of new electronic documentary tools and (3) to favour the opening up of the legal publishing markets in the United States. Until now, eleven states have adopted the ABA's proposal; four others are presently studying the question [ABA]. A similar initiative in Australia has driven the High Court of Australia to adopt a citation standard similar to that of the ABA [HCA].
[3] The initiative of the Canadian Judicial Council in the matter of preparation of electronic judgments as well as the proposals from abroad have certainly had an influence in Canada. During the summer of 1997, a group of specialists met in Montreal in order to call for the elaboration of a neutral citation [Appel]. Again, at the end of the autumn of the same year, a large assembly of specialists and publishers got together at the invitation of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries and Legal Research Network. They held a summit and they agreed to work towards developing a neutral standard in Canada. The Canadian Citation Committee is a result of these meetings and discussions.
[4] The committee took shape in the spring of 1998. Many conference calls have enabled it to establish the basis of the standard that is now proposed. Working documents as well as all the Committee's debates have all been published on its Web site. [Committee].
[5] In the coming year, our plan is to publish a neutral standard for the citation of case law for the Canadian legal community. Our purpose in circulating this draft document is to ensure that this new standard meets the needs of the legal community, through the broadest possible consultation process.
2. Why change a system that works?
[6] The absence of an official and neutral citation for jurisprudence, a citation that would emanate directly from the court, is easily explicable for somebody that looks into the history of law reports. In fact, about five centuries ago, it was individuals external to the courts ¾ independents ¾ who took charge of the transcription, editing and, finally, publication of the courts’ decisions. Over time, this role transformed itself into what we well know today, that is, an industry specialized in publishing high quality reports and databases. Both the origin and the evolution of this industry should justify its pre-eminent place in legal publishing.
… to meet new needs of the courts
[7] The introduction of computers considerably changes the picture. From now on, courts take charge of their decisions themselves. Many of them even publish directly on the Internet. Nevertheless, the Canadian judicial world does not have a citation method that would permit it to name, in an official and permanent way, the decisions that they pronounce. That is one of the reasons why citation projects have been initiated and promoted urgently here and abroad in the last few years.
… to facilitate the implementation of electronic research tools
[8] The availability of a unique and permanent citation for judicial decisions at the same time as courts make them publicly accessible would greatly simplify the development of electronic research tools. In fact, the review of the traditional mode of citation becomes crucial at a moment where electronic media are becoming increasingly important as core research sources. It is more and more common that decisions are available across Canada on the Internet, for example, a few weeks or even months before they can be available in a printed collection of case law. During this interval, the publishers of research tools don’t have at their disposal a definitive mode of citation, except a mostly indirect citation to the court’s stapled document. The rapid growth in the use of electronic tools may even be hindered by the absence of an official citation method. Generally, as the importance of electronic means will continue to grow, it is important to elaborate, without delay, a citation method that will permit for their growth in the best interests of the Canadian legal community and, more generally, the public at large.
[9] The traditional citation method for case law takes root in the varied printed collections. These collections have acquired throughout the years great prestige and have, until today, served the Canadian legal community quite well. However, from an author’s point of view, it would be desirable to be able to cite a legal reference without having to, beforehand, assure oneself --or suppose-- that the reader will have access to the same report. From the reader’s point of view, a neutral citation would permit him or her to access a precise reference without having to necessarily turn to the same document that the author used. In fact, the standard should permit one to cite case law the same way that we cite legislation. When referring to a statute, an author will not take the trouble to specify the particular work to which he or she referred; but simply cite the paragraph, title, and date of the statute to which the reader should be referred. The present standard will offer the same facility for the use of case law.
… to guarantee a long term opening up of the Canadian market for legal information
[10] The citation standard should consolidate the public nature of case law and reinforce the industry of legal publishing in Canada. Indeed, it contributes to establishing the public nature of Canadian jurisprudence by assuring that public documents emanating from the courts may be cited in a neutral way. Furthermore, the standard will contribute to solidify the Canadian legal publishing industry. Effectively, it will reinforce competition and will favour the harmonious development of electronic research tools. In the Canadian legal publishing industry, nobody will have a monopoly on citation methods and everybody will be able to compete. This citation method will facilitate the interoperability of future information systems. Finally, for the legal community, the standard will favour access to excellent research tools at an affordable cost.
[11] The proposed citation standard has three essential elements. Optional elements can be added to the core in order to increase readability and precision. First of all, let us establish the citation standard's objective.
[12] The standard aims to permit the permanent identification of a judicial decision independently of its mode of publication, on paper or on electronic media. It has no descriptive elements pertaining to the hierarchical level nor to the internal structure of the institutions concerned.
[13] The tribunal itself assigns the neutral citation whenever it renders the decision. For the purpose of the standard, the expression "tribunal" designates judicial as well as quasi-judicial or administrative institutions.
[14] The different elements constituting the citation go from the general to the specific.
[15] In order to be used easily with computerized systems, accented characters – letters having diacritic signs -- will be avoided in the expression of the elements of the standard. In a more technical way, the set of characters used will be the ISO/IEC 646 standard [ISO-646].
[16] The central elements of the citation are not case-sensitive. This means that upper- and lower-case letters can be used without distinction in order to favour readability, but they cannot be used to distinguish two citations because they have the same value.
The mandatory elements of the citation
vThe year
[17] The year of the decision constitutes the first mandatory element of the proposed citation method. Four numbers denote the year. For the purpose of the neutral citation, the year is designated as the year in which the decision was rendered by the tribunal.
vThe tribunal identifier
[18] The second mandatory element of the citation is the tribunal identifier. In the citation, the tribunal identifier immediately follows the information relative to the year of the decision. With respect to the tribunal identifier, the standard limits itself to suggesting a size and a method of attribution only.
[19] The tribunal identifiers should not have more than eight characters. Longer identifiers are always a possibility but it seems more appropriate to avoid them in order to simplify the use of the standard.
[20] The tribunal identifiers are attributed in a decentralized way by the judicial authorities of each Canadian jurisdiction. With the exception of the federal jurisdiction, the tribunal identifiers have a prefix of two characters that correspond to the two-letter code attributed to the jurisdiction by an international standard [ISO-3166-2], that is, QC, ON and so on. To this prefix, a specific suffix is added to each of the institutions that produce case law in the jurisdiction.
[21] The tribunal identifiers of bilingual jurisdictions will be bilingual in order to avoid a co-existence of French and English citations for the same decision. Whenever the tribunal identifier is bilingual, both linguistic segments are joined by a hyphen. For example, the Supreme Court of Canada could be designated by "CSC-SCC".
vThe ordinal number of the decision
[22] The ordinal number of the decision is the third element in the formation of the core of the neutral citation. Tribunals assign these ordinal numbers the way they see fit. However, some recommendations follow:
[23] The attribution method used by a tribunal can, if needed, be comprised of a numeric prefix in order to simplify the attribution of the numbers in the case of complex tribunals. However, in all cases, numbers do not have an internal separator. The objective of simplicity for the standard dictates against the use of complex and descriptive docket numbers.
[24] Oral decisions published after judgment is rendered from the bench should be assigned the next available ordinal number for the year in which they were rendered.
[25] All judgments produced by a court should be numbered. This objective will only be met to the extent possible by each tribunal.
The optional elements of the citation
[26] Three optional elements complete the proposed citation standard. They are the style of cause, the qualification attributes and the indication of cited elements, whether they are paragraphs or notes.
vStyle of cause
[27] The style of cause of the decision remains optional. When used, it appears in first position before the citation. The citation standard does not specify the format of the style of cause.
vDecisions qualifications
[28] Where necessary, the qualification of a rendered decision is possible by adding suffixes to the ordinal number. Those suffixes are allowed by the standard, and their number should be, if possible, limited to only a few essential cases.
[29] A special but important case of the qualification of files is with respect to the use of language. This element is optional, for in some situations it will not appear, however the standard identifies three situations where it becomes mandatory:
- In case of decisions rendered in officially bilingual jurisdictions;
- In case of decisions rendered in the other official language by courts in jurisdictions that usually publish in a particular language;
- and in the case of translations published by some courts.
[30] In case of decisions rendered by courts of officially bilingual jurisdictions, each decision will have a suffix indicating the language of the decision's version. Accordingly, this suffix takes the "-fr" or "-en" value. The suffix is added to the ordinal number of the decision.
[31] In case of decisions rendered in the other official language by courts in jurisdictions that usually publish in a particular language, the decisions occasionally published in the other language must have a language suffix attached to their ordinal number.
[32] In the case of translations, the suffix "-t" should be added to the ordinal number.
[33] The publication of a revised decision may be accompanied by the existence use of the "-r" qualification. This attribute is added as a suffix to the ordinal number of the neutral citation. For example, the citation for a revised version of judgment number 33 would be expressed as "33-r".
vThe reference to paragraphs and notes
[34] The citation standard permits the designation of paragraphs and notes in order to increase the precision of cited elements. Paragraph numbers used are those applied in accordance with the "Standards for the Preparation, Distribution and Citation of Canadian Judgments in Electronic Form" of the Canadian Judicial Council [CJC].
[35] The reference to a paragraph is introduced by ", para". Three cases can be distinguished.
[36] The reference to only one paragraph is possible by the use of the sequence of ", para" and the number of the cited paragraph. For example, 1998 QCTDP 23, para 21
[37] The reference to a sequence of paragraphs is indicated by the use of ", para", of the number of the first paragraph and separated from the last paragraph number by a hyphen. For example, the expression ", para 33-35" designates the paragraphs 33, 34 and 35.
[38] The reference to non-consecutive paragraphs relies on the preceding notions. It is possible to combine both proposed forms by separating them with commas. Thus, the expression ", para 33-35, 39, 45-47" designates the paragraphs 33, 34, 35, the paragraph 39 and the paragraphs 45, 46 and 47.
[39] The reference to notes of a decision is introduced by ", note". Reference to particular notes follows the same scheme as that for paragraphs.
Conforming to International Standards
vAddition of a country code
[40] In order to harmonize with international efforts, our standard should probably plan for the insertion of some type of country identifier. . It remains to be seen how this code would be added to the citation, and what form it would take.
[41] At the core of the standard are the year of the decision, the tribunal identifier and the ordinal number of the decision. For example, the standard applied to the "Court of Appeal for British Columbia", could take the following form:
1998 BCCA 11
[42] By adding optional elements such as the style of cause,a translation qualification as well as paragraph numbers, we obtain the following reference:
Fong c. Gill, 1998 BCCA 11-T , para 4
[43] This proposal conforms to the traditions of the Canadian case law citation as shown by the Caparros and Goulet scheme [CAPA, p. 170] :
4. The next steps[Style of cause] Year [Volume] Report [Ed.] Doc. No. Page Jurisdiction
Green v. Staz (1969) 3 D.L.R. (3d) 358 (B.C.S.C.)
Green c. Staz 1969 BCSC 11 §22
_______ _____
2nd Part 1rst Part - Indication 3rd Part
Identification Complement
[44] This consultation is being led in two different ways. First, the main judicial and legal institutions of the country are formally invited to send us their comments. At the same time, anyone interested is invited to communicate with the Committee in order to transmit his or her comments and suggestions.
[45] All participants to the consultation process will be invited to authorize us to publish their comments. Every response for which we have an authorization will be published without delay on the Committee's Web site: http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/citation/en/.
[46] The comments will then be synthesized and proposals for modification of the standard will be examined and evaluated. A new version of the standard will then be prepared.
[47] Then, towards the end of the spring of 1999, the standard will be proposed for discussion and eventual adoption by the Judges Computer Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council.
[48] If the Judges Computer Advisory Committee adopts the standard's proposal, a recommendation of adoption will be forwarded to the Canadian Judicial Council in order to be discussed at its next meeting.
[49] If, as hoped, the consultation process and adoption are recognized as positive, what remains is to explain and promote the neutral citation standard to the various interested institutions. This last step would constitute the conclusion of the Committee's work.
5. The advantages of the citation standard For the judges
v Increases freedom of choice in the selection of research tools;
v Favours judicial independence by creating a public method of citing judicial decisions;
v Makes it easier for courts to publish on the Web.
For judicial administration
v Creates an official citation for recent or unpublished decisions;
v Simplifies the implementation of internal or public information systems;
v Simplifies and enables the management and the rationalization of law libraries.
For the legal community
v Facilitates reference to recent decisions;
v Increases freedom of choice in the selection of research tools
v Promises to increase the availability of high quality electronic reference systems;
v Favours the opening of the market, heightens competition and, by this, contributes to the control of legal costs.
For the legal publisher
v Permits the integration of multiple publications;
v Simplifies the management of collections by rationalizing the production and identification of case law;
v Favours the immediate publication of case law;
v Favours the development of electronic tools while offering an official method of referencing unpublished decisions.
[ABA] American Bar Association, Legal Technology Resource Centre - Uniform Citation Standards, See: http://www.abanet.org/citation
[Appel] Declaration for the Elaboration of a Case Citation Standard, Montreal, August 11th, 1997, See: http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/citation/en/archives/declaration.html
[CALL] Canadian Association of Law Libraries, Conference "THE OFFICIAL VERSION" - A National Summit To Solve the Problems of Authenticating, Preserving and Citing Legal Information in Digital Form, November 20-22, 1997, Sheraton Hotel, Toronto, See: http://www.callacbd.ca/summit
[CAPA] E. Caparros and J. Goulet, La documentation juridique : références et abréviations, Presses de l’Université Laval, Québec, 1973.
[CJC] Canadian Judicial Council, Judges Computer Advisory Committee, "Standards for the Preparation, Distribution and Citation of Canadian Judgments in Electronic Form"", May 1996, see: http://www.integeractif.com/standards.htm and http://www.cjc-ccm.gc.ca
[Committee] Web site of the Canadian Citation Committee, See: http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/citation/en/
[HCA] High Court of Australia, "Paragraph Numbers in High Court of Australia Judgments and the use of "Medium Neutral" Citations", See: http://www.hcourt.gov.au/short.htm.
[ISO-646] International Organization for Standardization. ISO/IEC 646:1991, Information technology -- ISO 7-bit coded character set for information interchange. See: http://www.iso.ch/catf/d4777.html or http://macnash.admin.uottawa.ca/nash/datamove/dmd00.htm
[ISO-3166-2] International Organization for Standardization, ISO/DIS 3166-2 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 2: Country subdivision code. See: http://www.iso.ch/cate/d8349.html
Annex 1: The Canadian Citation Committee
Diane BOURQUE Executive Director, Federation of Law Societies of Canada Daniel BOYER Wainwright Civil Law Librarian, faculty of Law, McGill University, Canadian Association of Law Libraries Edna BRESTWER Executive Assistant to Chief Justice, Chief Librarian, Saskatchewan QUeen's Bench Maria CECE Manager, Judicial Library Services, Ontario Courts Judges' Library Martin FELSKY Chairman, Legal Research Network and Technical Adviser Member, Judges Computer Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council Diane HANSON Librarian, Law Society of New Brunswick Guy HUARD Editor (1995-1998), LexUM, Université de Montréal Jennifer JORDAN Registrar, Court of Appeal of British Columbia Denis LE MAY Law Librarian, Uniersité Laval and former President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Denis MARSHALL Head Law Librarian, William R. Lederman, Queen's University; Former President of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries and Member, Judges Computer Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council Bruno MÉNARD LexUM, CRDP, Université de Montréal (Secretary, Canadian Citation Committee) Micheline MONPETIT Senior Editor, Société québécoise d'informatique juridique (SOQUIJ) Daniel POULIN Professor, LexUM (CRDP) and Member, Judges Computer Advisory Committee of Canadian Judicial Council (Co-ordinator, Canadian Citation Committee) Ruth RINTOUL Editor in Chief, QL Systems Linda SCOTT Provincial Court Libraries, Alberta Justice
Annex 2: Questionnaire for the Neutral Citation Standard for the Case Law
1- Identification
Name:
Organization:
Note: You may prepare additional comments on plain paper if required.
2- Your general comments on the standard
3- Your comments concerning the general framework of the standard
On the non-descriptive character of the standard (ref. [12]) On the used set of characters (ref. [15]) On case-insensitivity (ref. [16]) Other comments on the general framework
4- Your comments concerning the mandatory elements of the standard
On the use and the choice of the reference year (ref. [17]) On the tribunal identifier (ref. [18-21]) On the ordinal number, of its constraints and on the numbering of all judgments (ref. [22-25])
5- Your comments concerning the optional elements of the standard
On the style of cause as well as the silence of the standard pertaining to its form (ref. [27]) On the qualifications of the decisions, particularly on the proposed qualifications for the use of the official languages (ref. [28-32]) On the qualification of revised decisions (ref. [33]) On the method of referencing paragraphs and notes (ref. [34-39])
6- Other comments
Note: Comments received will be made public. However, you may decide to restrict publication of your name and/or affiliation.
Do you authorize the publication of - your name: yes / no? (circle your choice)
- the name of your organization: yes / no? (circle your choice)
To send your comments or to contact the Canadian Citation Committee
Committee’s Web site:
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/citation/en/
Consultation’s Web site:
http://www.lexum.umontreal.ca/citation/en/consultation/
E-mail address to use for your comments:
com.citation@crdp.umontreal.ca
To contact the Committee by other means
Canadian Citation Committee
a/s Daniel POULIN
LexUM, CRDP, Université de Montréal
C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville
Montréal (Qc) H3C 3J7
Email: poulind@droit.umontreal.ca
Telephone: (514) 343-2139
Facsimile: (514) 343-7508