JURI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA JUSTICE ET DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, May 6, 1998

• 1537

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Shaughnessy Cohen (Windsor—St. Clair, Lib.)): Order.

We're still in the estimates process, and today we have with us, from the Supreme Court of Canada, three women: Madam Anne Roland, registrar; Madam Louise Meagher, deputy registrar; and Irene O'Connor, director of administrative services.

Welcome. Do you have a brief or did you intend just to answer questions?

Ms. Anne Roland (Registrar, Supreme Court of Canada): I was intending to give you a little presentation and a quick overview for ten minutes.

The Chair: Okay. Go ahead.

Ms. Anne Roland: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I start my brief outline, I would like to mention that I have given the clerk an overview of the court's organization, as well the court's statistics for 1997.

I understand you have part III of the estimates for 1998-99 for the Supreme Court, and its performance report for the period ending March 31, 1997.

Madam Chair and members of Parliament, allow me to briefly remind you of how the court is organized from an administrative point of view before I turn to our plans and priorities.

The Supreme Court of Canada was established as a general court of appeal for Canada in 1875 under section 101 of the Constitution Act, 1867. It only became “supreme” with the abolition of all the appeals to the Privy Council in England in 1949. In 1976 the administration of the court was made independent of the Department of Justice, under whose jurisdiction it had been previously been.

Composed of nine judges—the Chief Justice of Canada and eight puisne judges—the court is supported in its work by a team of public servants. Under the general direction of the Chief Justice, the registrar of the court is the deputy head of the administrative body, which is considered a department for the purposes of the Financial Administration Act. Moreover, the registrar is the administrator of the Judges Act for the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada.

• 1540

[Translation]

Presenting the administration of the Court is an opportunity to point out what it has done as well as its future plans, taking into account the unique position of this institution in our country. To support the activities of the Court, its administration plans its activities along three lines.

First, there is institutional independence. The function of the administration is to provide the necessary support to the judges in the exercise of their duties and to the parties who appear before the Court as well as the numerous parties interested by the Court's decisions.

The level of activity is dictated by the number of cases that are brought before the Court. In 1997, there were 637 leave applications filed, an increase of 13% over 1996. I would like to point out that in 1996, there was an increase of 38% over 1995. The Court granted about 11% of the applications and heard 104 appeals on the merits, 37 of which were appeals as of right. This workload described in the statistics bulletin you were given has a direct effect on all Court services.

Court administration manages the resources made available by ensuring the maintenance of efficacious and arm's length dealings with Parliament, the Department of Justice and central organizations. The Court must remain free from any influence and be in a position to discharge its terms of reference.

Its budget for 1998-99 is $14.7 million broken down into $11.4 million for administration and $3.3 million for statutory payments to the judges. The effective management of those funds is the administration's contribution to the institutional independence of the Court.

I would like to point out that if the workload keeps increasing, we will certainly have to obtain resources to maintain the services necessary to the Court if it is to continue to function properly, as well as to conserve what has already been acquired over the past years.

[English]

One of our achievements is certainly access to the court, and it must continue to improve. The administration is committed to ensuring free access to its services by both traditional and technological means. The court's web site, launched in July of last year, has been improved to offer a wider range of judicial and general information. That was actually done last Friday. Improvements will continue as resources permit.

An Intranet service for the use of court employees has also been made available. The use of television has continued and it has opened the hearings of the court to a broad interested public. Nonetheless, more traditional forms of access to the court services remain important for the large number of Canadians who cannot avail themselves of the more sophisticated technology.

The library of the court, which constitutes an essential research base to the work of the court, provides a striking example of the marriage of the traditional and the cutting edge. It has gone virtual, offering access to its catalogue on the Internet, its information on CD-ROM, and links to external databases while maintaining its traditional collection of fundamental works.

Formal resource-sharing agreements with federal libraries and the consortium of provincial court law libraries have enabled it to contain its costs while considerably enriching its collection.

All of these changes must be accomplished in a manner that respects the legal foundations of the court as established in the Supreme Court Act and rules. With a targeted completion date of 2000, which will mark the 125th anniversary of the court, the court has undertaken a project to modernize the procedures detailed in its constituent act and rules.

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[Translation]

Our efforts in this respect also focus on processing cases without delay. The success of the Court stems from an ongoing effort to track unjustified delays in the processing of cases. Presently, it takes three and a half months on average for leave applications to be heard and a bit less than three months between the hearing of an appeal and the judgement.

We must remain vigilant and use all technological means available to deal with the ongoing increase of documents tabled. To this end, the Court is now developing a second generation of its records management system which is based on the most recent technology and is also compatible with the year 2000. The Court's decisions are available without delay or cost via the Internet to whoever needs them both in Canada as well as abroad but they are also available in traditional form so that no one is excluded.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that all the efforts of the Court's administration are geared to promoting the independence of the judiciary in the environment of a healthy public administration. I'm proud of its accomplishments. Thanks to the excellent work of all employees, the administration has provided the judges with the quality support necessary to their work, thus providing all Canadians with the services they deserve.

[English]

Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Ramsay, 10 minutes.

Mr. Jack Ramsay (Crowfoot, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for coming today and for their presentation.

I'd like to just ask a couple of questions in the area of the Judges Act. We are now looking at an amendment to the Judges Act, and of course this is the second amendment within the last few years. Does the registrar or do you folks have anything to do with making recommendations or having any input into amendments to the Judges Act, inasmuch as you administer the act?

Ms. Anne Roland: What I can say on that is the question of the Judges Act is being discussed and we monitor what is happening. We've looked at the proposal that's now before the House and how it would affect us, particularly the issue of a pension after 10 years on the Supreme Court bench if you are 65.

If I am asked, I will make comments. Basically that is my answer.

The Chair: Just to help, Jack, if I can...I think what Mr. Ramsay wanted to know is if any of you or your office were consulted before the act was amended.

Ms. Anne Roland: No. I would say no, we were not consulted. I was not consulted.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Was anyone within your department consulted?

Ms. Anne Roland: I would assume the office of the Chief Justice was probably consulted, yes.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: The office of the Chief Justice?

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Would that have been on the bill presently before Parliament or would it have been on the previous bill, or both?

Ms. Anne Roland: I would not be able to answer that, Mr. Ramsay, because I don't know more than what I just told you.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay. But you said the office of the Chief Justice is consulted on amendments to the Judges Act?

Ms. Anne Roland: I would say certainly judges have an interest, but I don't know any more than that.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Well, of course the Judges Act deals with the salaries and pensions of judges. I would be interested and I think the committee would be interested in knowing to what extent, if any, the judges have input into any changes in the act that would affect their pensions or their salaries.

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The Chair: Jack, it seems to me if you want to ask those questions, those questions can be directed to the minister when she comes next week. These people are not here to talk about the judges, nor should they be. They're here to talk about the administration of the court.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Yes, but if they can add any information to this, that is fine. If they don't have any, that's fine too.

The Chair: Well, I think they should be comfortable enough to know that they're free to say whether they have that information or not.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Well, yes, and—

Ms. Anne Roland: I do not have that information.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay, that's fine.

Then, to finalize this area of questioning, you have no information as to whether or not the Chief Justice or anyone on the Supreme Court is consulted with regard to amendments to the Judges Act? You have no knowledge of that?

Ms. Anne Roland: No.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay, thank you.

Beginning on page 4, the last sentence, under your conclusion you refer to priorities and you say:

These priorities are: to ensure the institutional independence of the Court, to continue to improve access to the Court and its services, to process cases without delay and to provide the Court with the information base it requires to carry out its mandate.

To what extent does your administration alleviate delays or contribute to delays in cases heard?

Ms. Anne Roland: We have several ways to deal with delays. First of all, the court rules provide for some timeframe for cases and actions by parties, so our case management system allows us to see whether anything is late. If that's the case, then we certainly contact the parties and ask them to move.

There are two specific rules in the Supreme Court rules to deal with delays. On application for leave to appeal, if nothing happens within three months, the registrar in fact can move that the application for leave to appeal be dismissed unless the party applies to a judge for an extension of time. So that is a way by which we control timeframes. That applies to an appeal as well, but it's far more occurrent on leave applications.

We have a variety of BF systems, and when we find ways to improve... For instance, Parliament passed a change last year to section 58 of the Supreme Court Act that did away with... The month of August used not to count, but now it counts in delay. That's a way by which we narrowed the timeframe it takes to bring a case before the court.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: For the record of our committee, would you outline the procedure that's followed when, let's say, a criminal case is appealed to the Supreme Court? Where does the appeal go, what process does it follow, and so forth?

Ms. Anne Roland: Criminal appeals are of two kinds, so I'll take first the general thrust. First of all, a party must have a decision of a court of appeal, and that has to apply to the Supreme Court on leave application. If it is an issue of public importance, the court will grant leave. If the court refuses leave at that stage, it is the end of the process. If the court grants leave, then parties have a number of months to prepare their documentation for the appeal to be argued on the merit. That is one stream.

Under the Criminal Code, there are appeals as of right when there is dissent on a question of law in the court of appeal or when a verdict of acquittal has been reversed. So in that case you do not have the leave application stage; you come right away to the appeal on the merit and documents are filed.

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As a matter of fact, I don't know whether you have our statistics, but there is a very nice appeal process described there that shows the general process in a snapshot, not with all the details but the general process.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: In looking at delays, I'm interested in knowing, when an appeal is filed with the Supreme Court of Canada, what happens to it? Is it mailed to the registrar?

Ms. Anne Roland: It could be mailed. It is filed at the Supreme Court. It usually comes with a notice of appeal as well as a factum that is no longer than 20 pages.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Who sees it first?

Ms. Anne Roland: The registry staff see it first.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Where does it proceed from there?

Ms. Anne Roland: In detail, then, it goes there; it is complete—that is, all the required elements and the rules are there—then it is sent to our legal affairs group; and then a summary is provided to the judges. The judges then consider the matters in panels of three. When they are ready to hand down a decision on the leave, they do so.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Does the legal group make a recommendation to the Supreme Court?

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes, they do.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: So they make a recommendation as to whether or not the case should be heard, the application should be accepted or rejected.

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay.

How time consuming is that process for your legal group, to examine and then make their recommendations?

Ms. Anne Roland: It is about a eight- to nine-week process.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Why is it that long?

Ms. Anne Roland: We get 600 of them a year, so it takes a while to get through them.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: So are you understaffed?

Ms. Anne Roland: As I said in my short presentation, this is something I will certainly monitor, because with the very sharp increase we've had over the last couple of years, I am concerned. But the increase seems to be tapering off. If we feel that we cannot handle the matter, certainly we will—

Mr. Jack Ramsay: If you wanted to reduce the average from the eight weeks, I believe you said, to reduce that by half to, say, four weeks, what would you require?

Ms. Anne Roland: We'd require a whole lot more people, probably.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay.

Ms. Anne Roland: Any intellectual process takes a bit of time to go through, in any case. I think it's a balancing act between speed and efficiency. So currently, if we look overall, the general time it takes for an application for leave to appeal to be rendered has improved tremendously over the years.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay, those are my questions for this round. Thank you.

Ms. Anne Roland: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Jack.

Peter.

Mr. Peter MacKay (Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, PC): I would like to extend my thanks and gratitude, as well, for your appearance today.

I'll pick up on the questioning by my colleague. With respect to what we'll call the backlog or the time it takes for a decision to be rendered, I would suggest—and correct me if I'm wrong—that it would depend on the issues of the case. I take it that at any given time your court may very well be facing a number of very complicated cases, as opposed to a certain point in time where there may in fact be cases where there are fewer issues that need to be decided. Is that fair to say?

Ms. Anne Roland: It is very hard. I think all the issues that come before the Supreme Court are complex in the sense that it's usually not clear-cut, otherwise it wouldn't be before the court.

In fact, the court has no backlog. On the appeal side, the court hears all the appeals that are ready to be heard in each session. Even if we look at the leave application process, it is running quite smoothly globally. But it could be perfected, of course.

• 1600

Mr. Peter MacKay: I was led to believe—and perhaps I misunderstood—the process changed somewhat in terms of automatic leave for appeal from the defence side. That is to say, there was a time when, if you went through the various steps you've described for us... Defence counsel, at least, always had a leave to appeal if there was an issue at the Supreme Court at the provincial level that they then chose to refer on, whereas now there is this additional step where, at the Supreme Court of Canada level, they can decide on the merits whether leave will be granted. So there is an additional stage in the proceedings.

Ms. Anne Roland: Actually, the leave process was instituted many years ago. If I'm correct, the leave process was instituted In 1976-77.

Mr. Peter MacKay: But I believe this would have been a change as recent as 1996. The reason that sticks out in my mind is that the one and only time I was ever before the Supreme Court, I was told by the Chief Justice that it was the last case that was going to be heard in terms of an “as of” right.

Ms. Anne Roland: Oh, I'm sorry, on the “as of” right, the Criminal Code was amended last year. It changed for a very small fraction of the appeal “as of” right. When the Court of Appeal orders a new trial, then the parties have to file an application for leave to appeal in that case, as opposed to an appeal “as of” right.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Okay.

Ms. Anne Roland: But then it is an oral application for leave, while all the other applications for leave are in writing.

We have had very few of those cases; in fact, we had only two and they were this Monday. So it has not had a great impact yet. I can't say for the future, of course, but it has been pretty minimal as far as we can see, from the court's perspective.

Mr. Peter MacKay: With respect to the process of filing, can you tell us, has there been a change in the area of technology that's being used now? Are lawyers across the country permitted to file their applications via e-mail or computer? Has the Supreme Court caught up with the technology?

Ms. Anne Roland: I think I would say we are right there with the technology, but actually, we did change our rules to allow more use of fax and less duplication.

Right now, as I mentioned, we are redesigning our case management system, which is more of an internal system. This is a major enterprise for us and very important.

When that is finished, we definitely will be looking at, as a module, electronic filing. There are quite a few issues attached to that, and we'd also like to see what's happening in the other jurisdictions. What is interesting is that we need to resolve the issue of compatibility and technologies developing in that area, and so we are following what's happening.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Does that include the distribution of decisions on, say, a web site?

Ms. Anne Roland: Right now, our web site gives access to our decisions, which are maintained in the database by the University of Montreal. We chose that route because it was very economical and efficient for us; we don't have the resources necessarily or the knowledge to develop that.

Obviously, ultimately we would really like to patriate that information, but it requires us to get very familiar with the electronic languages, HTML and all that. We usually handle that by stages. In the grand plan or longer term, definitely it is something we are considering seriously. But from what we can say from users right now, our system is working very well. If you go into the Supreme Court site, you just click and that takes you to the decisions—

Mr. Peter MacKay: It skips to the Montreal site?

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes. That take you to the decisions, which are posted within a couple of hours of being issued. So I think it has never been as fast, and in both official languages as well, and in various software programs. Depending on what you have on your machine, you can read it.

Of course, with the ice storm, we were stuck.

• 1605

Mr. Peter MacKay: The system crashed.

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes, for a few days, but it was an act of God, I guess.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you. I have one last question.

The committee has been charged with looking at a number of important bills, and one of the pieces of legislation we've recently been discussing is S-5, which is a bill that, amongst other things, will increase access and physical accessibility of courtrooms. I couldn't help but notice, in the short time I've been in Ottawa, that there have been a lot of renovations going on over at your building, and I wondered what, if any, barriers there might be to persons with physical disabilities and their attendance at Supreme Court?

Ms. Anne Roland: You are quite right about the major renovations, and part of that was access, in fact. We have access for physically handicapped, or mobility handicapped, people. It's not perfect, because it's an old building and, short of tearing down marble walls, we can't do it 100% of the way according to the code. But we've made most of the building accessible, including the library. In the courtroom we have specially equipped washrooms and entrances with a special lift. I think we've done a lot of work in that context.

Also, within the court, internally, we've had special doors with those push buttons and we had to match that with our security system. It was quite a challenge to do, because it has to be convenient for people whose mobility is impaired and yet maintain the security of the building. I believe we've done almost everything we could possibly do. We have a project of renovating elevators, and there I think we'll need to include some inscription—I'm not sure how you call that—but for people who are blind or...

Mr. Peter MacKay: Visually impaired, Braille. That was my next question: do the renovations include improved access, or improved ability, for those who are hearing and visually impaired?

Ms. Anne Roland: For some of it, as I said, the elevators are the next step, but it is complex. It needs to be done; we know that. In our courtroom we have special equipment for people who are visually impaired, and they can come with a tape recorder, which we usually do not allow. A couple of times we've had sign language, as well, for hearings upon request.

Mr. Peter MacKay: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Mr. Lee and then Mr. Maloney.

Mr. Derek Lee (Scarborough—Rouge River, Lib.): Thank you.

I'll start off, for the record, by noting the apparent statistical improvement in delivery of services to appellants over the last 10 years. That's not a bad retrospective of the last 10 years of court service, and I can see very apparent reductions over that 10-year period in the lapse in time between the date leave is given for the hearing of an appeal and the time it takes to render a judgment. It's actually kind of impressive to see improvements like that.

The one thing we can't touch on, of course, is the quality of the judgments themselves, which doesn't matter since they're always right because you can't appeal anyway.

The Chair: That's right.

Mr. Derek Lee: I would congratulate the branch for that.

Looking in the rearview mirror, the documentation we have now shows full-time equivalents for the estimates we're looking at now and for future years, and it's 144 during this snapshot. What were the FTE measurements last year, and the year before and the year before that? Has there been a growth in the staffing at the Supreme Court?

Ms. Anne Roland: No, there's not been a growth. In fact, we underwent decreasing the number of staff over the last few years because we had to work with a reduction imposed by the government under the program review, and we've been able to maintain the level we said we would be at. As I said, it is a challenge, but it's been stable over the last couple of years, I believe.

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Mr. Derek Lee: The service level has improved.

You're saying that the full-time equivalents have decreased slightly.

Ms. Anne Roland: Yes.

Mr. Derek Lee: I don't understand how that can be. But maybe it happens. Maybe fairy tales come true.

Ms. Anne Roland: A number of things have happened. In the great effort we went through to do some realignment because of program review, we condensed a number of functions, in particular the support administrative function, and we were able to realize some of those savings because we were both cutting and redesigning two of the main activities of the courts. People have been working very hard too, extremely hard. I'm not saying they were not working hard before, but there's been a real push to be more focused on how we were handling the cases. Judges told us this is what they wanted and we had to achieve that.

Mr. Derek Lee: I'll congratulate you for that. We're supposed to give you a hard time here.

Ms. Anne Roland: No, no.

Mr. Derek Lee: We're going to be looking at a bill here shortly dealing with judges' salaries. Do your budget projections include any of the resources that would go into any increase in the Supreme Court judges' salaries?

Ms. Anne Roland: The Supreme Court judges' salaries are under a special budget, which we call statutory funding. So we usually put the amount we believe is going to be necessary to cover those. In this instance, depending on what happens to the bill or what the government decides, we should have enough in our projected budget. But if we don't, I'm sure we'll get it.

Mr. Derek Lee: Have you incorporated the objective of the judges' salary bill in your current budget projections?

Ms. Anne Roland: This time around, we only incorporated the amount for what was provided in the Judges Act currently. In fact, when we did our projection, we did not know about what would be proposed, so we had no way of knowing.

Mr. Derek Lee: So if the bill is adopted in its current form, I understand there will be some increases to the salaries of the Supreme Court judges. So there would have to be something in a supplementary financial estimate for the court, then, I gather, for the statutory envelope. Is that correct?

Ms. Irene O'Connor (Director of Administrative Services, Supreme Court of Canada): For the statutory envelope we always put in a projection, but it's not the same as on the voted side of the House. So you might see a small increase.

Mr. Derek Lee: Thank you for answering.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Maloney.

Mr. John Maloney (Erie—Lincoln, Lib.): In your presentation, you made reference to resource sharing with the provincial and territorial libraries. Is this strictly with the supreme courts of Ontario and Manitoba or is it with the county law libraries as well?

Ms. Anne Roland: It is with the provincial court network of law libraries, and it varies from province to province. Sometimes it is linked to the bar; sometimes it is linked directly to the court system. So there is a consortium. They are able to look at our catalogue on the Internet and then it gives us a great way to... If we need something really specialized in the province, we know that we will probably be able to borrow from there on interlibrary loan, the same way court libraries across the country can look in our catalogue and see whether there is anything they need.

Of course, they would first go to their law school library, which is closer, just because it's more convenient. But we may have something that is specialized and then we would be in a position to send them either the copy or a photocopy as required. So there is in that sense.

Mr. John Maloney: Do you have similar agreements with the law schools? You've made reference to that as well.

Ms. Anne Roland: At this juncture we do not have yet an agreement with law schools. We are working with the Ottawa law school now to develop some kind of agreement for their graduate students so they could come and use our library.

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We need to finalize the circulation module of our library, the electronic one, before we can do that, but in the meantime, if they need to borrow a book from us, they can ask for an interlibrary loan. But for them to come physically to our library, it's only on permission.

Mr. John Maloney: Is this arrangement a two-way street? Do they come to you more often than you go to them? As well, who pays for the cost of all this?

Ms. Anne Roland: For the interlibrary loans I believe we are the main provider. This is not only to other libraries, of course, but also to federal libraries, to the Library of Parliament. However, this enables us not to collect in some area that is really important to us. So, yes, we are providing a service, and the Supreme Court pays for sending the material, but in exchange, if we need something that's in the Library of Parliament or some other federal library all across the country, we know we'll get it as well.

I think it's a good quid pro quo. It has enabled us to focus on the core collection of our library, which is law. We do not collect in social sciences or other subjects that are peripheral to what we need.

Mr. John Maloney: Do you have, or do you anticipate having, similar arrangements with other jurisdictions, such as the United States or Britain or Australia?

Ms. Anne Roland: Right now, with our catalogue being on the Internet, you can see that people from all over the world would be able to see what we have and then ask us for documentation. I don't think this has happened. I think we'll need to see whether... People probably would be interested in Canadian material that we have and nobody else has.

Mr. John Maloney: You also make use of videoconferencing. Is this used very much?

Ms. Anne Roland: Videoconferencing is available. It has not been used very much. About five to ten times a year is usually what we see when it's being used.

Mr. John Maloney: Is there any reason for that?

Ms. Anne Roland: The court, and the Chief Justice in particular, have been really promoting use of videoconferencing, but I think counsel can be a bit reluctant to use it for all kinds of reasons of their own. I think once they have leave to appeal, they want to argue their appeal in person, at the Supreme Court. Probably it's one time in a career, so they really want to be there physically.

But it's been convenient to have, to serve some people who are further away, or for short hearings—for instance, some motions or interventions.

Mr. John Maloney: Do you have the equipment on-site or do you have to lease it?

Ms. Anne Roland: We do have our equipment. The main courtroom was equipped many years ago, and we have the equipment on-site. However, counsel in the various parts of the country have to go to a studio, for which we have a contract. We make the arrangements for them.

Mr. John Maloney: Who pays for that?

Ms. Anne Roland: We do.

Mr. John Maloney: Then it would be cheaper for you if they came to Ottawa as well, I guess.

Ms. Anne Roland: This is a way to look at it, for sure.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. John Maloney: In terms of the year 2000 computer situation, are you well fixed to be ready for that?

Ms. Anne Roland: We've been working on year 2000 for a year or so. We have had a program of improving our personal computers over the year. The desktop is actually year 2000 compatible.

We've been working with our various vendors to make sure our software is also compatible with the year 2000, and we are redesigning our case management system. This is not the only reason, but of course it is being designed to be year 2000 compatible. We've struck a special committee to look at all that.

We had a report card from Treasury Board recently, and they said we were doing very good—at least “good”, I would say—and were about 55% year 2000 compatible.

• 1620

Some of the issues, though, are not 100% in our control. We have, from reading various reports, concerns about things such as elevators and fax machines and telephones and electricity. We will be developing a contingency plan, but within the court, in our electronic equipment I believe we are well on the way to resolving most of the questions.

Some of our systems, of course, we've decided not to upgrade. We've just bought a new financial management system to make it year 2000 compatible as well as to meet the new requirements of the government on the financial side.

So it's moving well.

Mr. John Maloney: You anticipate on December 31, 1999, to be in 100% shape?

Ms. Anne Roland: I think I'll open a bottle of champagne.

Mr. John Maloney: Thanks, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Ramsay.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: I want to get your opinion and your testimony on the record with regard to the delay in cases. You express concern that the registrar provide a service that will process cases without delay. Some cases seem to be delayed, or there's a perception that they're delayed.

You had mentioned that eight-week period for your legal branch to prepare and make a recommendation to the court.

This is just an example, and of course I don't wish you to comment on it. Some of us on this committee have a particular interest in some cases—such as the challenge in the Airbus case—with regard to the manner in which requests are made to foreign countries for the authority to search bank accounts and so on.

That case was challenged, or the government appealed the Federal Court's decision on that to the Supreme Court, but at the time they conducted that appeal it was far in extension of the eight-week period you referred to earlier as being what it would take in an average case to prepare and make recommendations.

Is what I perceive as a delay in your area, or is it after the recommendation goes to the court that a delay may occur?

Ms. Anne Roland: The process starts, of course, when an application for leave is filed. If it is complete, that's the date we start with. If it's complete, it will go a little faster, but of course we have to wait for respondents to file a factum. Then we have a totally complete file to move on.

I believe the timeframe we have to prepare the files for the judge is reasonable. We've been working very diligently on that. If you look in that respect, and if you look at the overall timeframe for the application process, the timeframe from the time it's filed to the decision probably has gone down quite visibly. So it depends on how you look at it.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Of course, I'm wondering, in this particular case, why it's taken so long. Some seem to move through and a decision rendered in routine time, and others seem to take more time. I'm wondering if the staffing situation within the registrar, good or bad, is contributing to that.

Ms. Anne Roland: I'm not in a position to comment on a particular case. I just think by and large we are able to follow and provide the court with what it needs, generally speaking.

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Mr. Jack Ramsay: This is my final question. Then from your perspective, there is no undue delay within the legal branch in terms of preparing a case, making the recommendation, and forwarding it through to the court? The eight-week period, give or take a few days, is the average. Are you satisfied with that?

Ms. Anne Roland: I would confirm that eight weeks is the average time it takes. I think it's a process that's working very well.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Does the court ever ask for further clarification from the legal branch once they've filed something and made recommendations?

Ms. Anne Roland: I think this is a very delicate question that, if I may, Madam Chair, I would rather not deal with. These are the internal processes of the court, and I really do not feel comfortable talking about it.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Why not?

Ms. Anne Roland: Because I think this is part of the judicial aspect of the work, and I do not believe I can discuss or comment on that.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: But it's only dealing with process, not specific cases. It's just a process.

The Chair: Madame Roland is not a judge, and it's kind of unfair to ask her to answer questions about how judges deal with files because she doesn't sit inside their minds.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: But it's a general process, and these are the estimates, and we're looking at—

The Chair: Jack.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: But, Madam Chair.

The Chair: No, Jack, I'm the chair. Let me tell you this. I'm just asking you to keep in mind that all they do is manage the files and deliver the files to a judge or a group of judges. Then the judges deal with the files, not them. They don't have anything to do with the substance of what happens.

I'm sure you're making them nervous because you're relating this to a specific case, which is a politically charged one. If you want to know what's in that file, go over to the registrar's office and take the file out.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: I'm not asking them to comment on that file. I made that clear.

The Chair: I know, but you're making them uncomfortable, and I'm asking you not to do that.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: This is about whether or not my question is legitimate. If it's not legitimate, then that's fine.

The Chair: Well, I'm not really clear about what your question is, then.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: My question was whether or not there are occasions when their legal branch submits the case together with a recommendation to the court, where further clarifications might have to be made by the legal branch as a result of a request from the court. I don't know why that would be so sensitive. It's just a process. I'm inquiring about the process.

Ms. Anne Roland: I think we just have to make two things very clear. One is that the legal staff only make recommendations on leave applications, not on appeals at all. Second, if the judges consult, it might be with their law clerks.

One has to think of two things. The leave application is the first step. That's where there is a recommendation. The appeal itself is a second step.

The eight weeks I referred to deal with the leave application process, not the second step at all.

Mr. Jack Ramsay: Okay, that's fine.

The Chair: All right. We're just about finished, but I just wanted to ask a question that I was prompted to ask of the Canadian Human Rights Commission yesterday. I found the answer so interesting that I'm going to ask you.

How much of your budget is spent on travel, and how much international travel for judges comes out of the budget of the Supreme Court of Canada?

Ms. Anne Roland: Judges are covered by the Judges Act. That's a special allocation under the various sections of the act.

The Chair: I'm well aware that our judges... In fact, I run into them when I'm abroad, so I'm wondering who's paying for their travel, what they're doing there, and how they're—

Ms. Anne Roland: The Judges Act provides for judges to attend conferences. That is the only item for which they travel.

• 1630

The Chair: Does CIDA ever ask for the assistance of our judges for an international purpose, or do other agencies of the government ever pay for our judges to travel?

Ms. Anne Roland: In recent times it has happened once, yes. CIDA helped because it was a major conference that CIDA sponsored. Otherwise it's always under the Judges Act.

As for staff members, we basically do not travel. The court is in Ottawa. We do attend a few conferences, but it's mostly all in Canada or in the U.S., at most. So there is a little travelling for us.

The Chair: But I suppose the Supreme Court justices could make arrangements to travel internationally without it going through your office in any event.

Ms. Anne Roland: You're right.

The Chair: Any other questions?

Thank you very much. Let me just commend you on an excellent report. The report of the Supreme Court of Canada is very easy to read.

Ms. Anne Roland: Thank you very much.

The Chair: We're grateful for that. It's also good that you are able to communicate to people in that fashion. Not all agencies of government communicate as well as you do. Thank you very much.

Ms. Anne Roland: Thank you.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.