Publications

In February 2010 The Forum submitted a "Letter of Intent" (LOI) to the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) as the first step in applying for a major five-year Community University Research Alliance (CURA) grant to pursue research on the costs of justice. This LOI was successful and we were invited to go ahead with a full application that was submitted in September 2010. This document contains the full description of that proposal which is supported by a 25-memebr research team and 32 stakeholder partners from across Canada and internationally. The results of the grant competition will be announced in February 2011.

This review identified publications related to costs of justice to investigate how costs have been measured and reported especially in empirical research studies. Of 1,500 journal publications, studies, reports, websites and media articles initially identified only 86 (59 in English and 27 in French) proved useful to the review. Of these, many offered valuable theoretical insights, but few offered concrete examples of how and where costs accrued, or suggestions for developing a viable methodology for assessing the cost of justice. Key international empirical studies are considered in detail and critically assessed. An annotated bibliography of key English language references is provided. Separate annotations and discussion of the French literature are also included in an Appendix to the main review.

The amount of literature devoted to discussions of costs of civil justice leaves no doubt that this is an issue of considerable interest and concern to the justice community, litigants and society at large. The review underlines, however, the current lack of systematic methodological approaches to empirical investigation. There are currently no methodological models for systematic measurement of Canadian costs of access to justice. Previous international research can contribute to developing new methodology but has significant limitations: applicability may be limited in a Canadian context; the most substantial studies are dated; and there are many challenges related to the availability of data and the validity of measurements.