Français

Publications

Into the Future — Conference Papers

The following papers and reports are from the Forum's two-part 2006 national conference, Into the Future: The Agenda for Civil Justice Reform.

See also:

Part II — Confirming Our Common Vision

Part I — The Agenda for Civil Justice Reform

Part II — Confirming Our Common Vision

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice has initiated a series of questionnaires aimed at assessing developments, since 1996, in systems of civil justice in Canada. Why since 1996? That is the year, now a decade ago, in which the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) published the Report of its Task Force on Systems of Civil Justice (the CBA Task Force Report). The CBA Task Force account of the civil justice systems as they stood in 1996 and its 53 recommendations provide a useful benchmark from which to measure change.
This paper explores the potential benefits and limitations of composite indices as performance measures and begins to examine how such an indicator could be used to evaluate the civil justice systems of Canada.

Following Part I of the Into the Future conference in May of this year it was clear that the findings of the 1996 Systems of Civil Justice Task Force Report have been widely accepted, and that many of the recommendations made in that report have been implemented by various Canadian jurisdictions. It was equally clear however that the fundamental problems described in the Report - cost, delay and complexity inhibiting access to justice - have not been resolved, and they remain for virtually all jurisdictions, serious and pressing concerns.

This document was written in anticipation of Part II of the Into the Future conference, in order to provide a point of departure for a discussion about civil justice reform among representatives from all of the sectors and jurisdictions of our justice system.

This discussion paper is meant to:

  • reaffirm the need to develop performance measures by which to measure progress over time in the field of civil justice reform,
  • provide a conceptual framework within which to make decisions about the scope and feasibility of establishing pan-Canadian performance measures, and
  • Stimulate thinking about the components of a short term Action Plan.

Part I — The Agenda for Civil Justice Reform

Program and Brochure

Ten Years Later: So Much Accomplished So Much Still To Do in Civil Justice Reform

Challenges Facing the Civil Justice System — Barriers to Access and to Effective Reform

Keynote Address on Access to Justice in Quebec

Civil Justice Reform: Some Common Problems, Some Possible Solutions

Keeping Litigation Costs in Check – Procedures for Dealing with Smaller Claims

Standards for the New Millenium — Meeting Public Expectations

Messages from the Market — What the Public Civil Justice System Can Learn from the Private System

The Future of Civil Justice — Culture, Communication and Change

Litigants — Their Views, Experiences and Expectations

Responding to the Needs of Unrepresented and Self-Represented Litigants

Role of Lawyers in Managing Litigation and its Costs

Integrating ADR into Civil Litigation