Mission
"The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice is a non-profit, independent organization dedicated to bringing together the public, the courts, the legal profession and government in order to promote a civil justice system that is accessible, effective, fair and efficient."
This relatively simple statement is really quite a timely and exciting undertaking. We are at a turning point in our civil justice system, where all of the legal disciplines are becoming aware of and open to sharing information and working together on the much needed reforms. The Forum is able to assist in bringing these groups together to advance the body of knowledge. At the same time, our goal is to clarify and communicate this knowledge, so that the public can understand and become more involved in civil justice reform. We want to ensure that the citizen is at the centre of our justice system.
Vision
The phrase 'civil justice system' evokes in most people the image of an imposing courthouse, an austere courtroom, an adversarial trial procedure, and a trial judge as the final arbiter of rights in dispute. The CBA vision for the civil justice system in the twenty-first century is of a system that:
- is responsive to the needs of users and encourages and values public involvement,
- provides many options to litigants for dispute resolution,
- rests within a framework managed by the courts, and
- provides an incentive structure that rewards early settlement and results in trials being a mechanism of valued but last resort for determining disputes.
From the Systems of Civil Justice Task Force Report, at p. 23.
Objects
The formal objects of the Forum are to seek to improve the civil justice system in ways and means including but not restricted to the following:
- collecting in a systematic way information relating to the system for administering civil justice;
- carrying out in-depth research on matters affecting the operation of the civil justice system;
- promoting the sharing of information about the use of best practices;
- functioning as a clearinghouse and library of information for the benefit of all persons in Canada concerned with civil justice;
- developing liaisons with similar organizations in other countries to foster exchanges of information across national borders; and
- taking a leadership role in providing information concerning civil justice reform initiatives and developing effective means of exchanging this information.
What does 'Civil Justice System' mean?
A civil action is any legal action that is not a criminal action. Civil actions are between private individuals, unlike criminal actions which are between the State and the accused. Examples of civil actions are claims for debt, for damages arising from motor vehicle accidents, divorces, adoptions, matrimonial property actions, foreclosures and administration of estates following a death. (Law Society of Alberta
)
Citizens must have available a just and peaceful way to enforce our rights and obtain solutions to our disagreements with others. The civil justice system provides a way for us to do this. The civil justice system gives us a way to apply the law to our situation. "It [the law] safeguards the rights of individuals, regulates their dealings with others and enforces the duties of government." (Lord Woolf, Interim Report).
The civil justice system includes the courts and the judges and court administrators who work in those courts. It includes the rules, processes and procedures for how to get a claim into the court and in front of a judge to be heard. It also includes the administration of all those rules, processes and procedures and the people necessary to do that.