The Quebec Bar Association last week published its first annual report card on the rule of law in the province, or Bilan de l’état de droit au Québec (in French only).

In the report, the Association summarizes its public interventions over the past year.

But what appear fairly unique are its efforts to measure the level of respect for the "rule of law" by authorities in the province and in Canada according to 4 criteria:

• public authorities and their representatives are subject to the law and courts are independent
• the protection of rights and freedoms of all citizens is assured
• the laws are stable and predictable
• access to justice is affordable

Overall, the Quebec Bar concludes that citizens of the province can have confidence in the rule of law in Quebec and Canada.

But there are grounds for worrying that certain rights are being eroded, states the report. And, according to the Bar, on certain occasions, the State has departed from respect for the rule of law.

The report mentions:

• reform of the Criminal Code (in particular, the proposed expansion of mandatory minimum sentences is criticized for threatening the ability of judges to make sentences correspond to the individual circumstances of each case)
• the growing "trivialization" (banalisation in French) of immunity from prosecution of certain categories of citizens and organizations, usually for economic reasons. The report mentions legislation that eliminated the right of citizens to sue snowmobilers or off-road vehicles for nuisance or damages to their property. It also refers to the proposed bill that would protect the City of Quebec from ever being sued over the building of a new sports/entertainment amphitheatre
• diminishing access to justice due to rising legal costs

It will be interesting to see if the idea of annual reports on respect for the rule of law spreads to other provinces and territories.

Despite anecdotal evidence of jurors misbehaving when using the Internet and social media (for instance, the recent article on Slaw English Court Jails Juror Who Used Internet Search), a recent survey of members of the U.S. federal judiciary reveals that the problem appears less widespread than many assume.

The Federal Judicial Center was asked by a committee of the policy-making Judicial Conference of the United States to survey federal judges on the issue (response rate was 53%).

The results, based on the responses of 508 responding judges, indicate that detected social media use by jurors is infrequent, and that most judges have taken steps to ensure jurors do not use social media in the courtroom. The most common strategy is incorporating social media use into jury instructions (…) Also common are the practice of reminding jurors on a regular basis not to use social media to communicate during trial or deliberations, explaining the reasons behind the ban on social media, and confiscating electronic devices in the courtroom. Judges admit that it is difficult to police jurors.

Only 30 of the 508 judges who responded reported instances of detected social media use by jurors during trials or deliberations.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the situation is similar in Canada.

Maybe all the fuss over Juror (Mis)Behavior in the Information Age is exaggerated. Of course, it is also possible that a lot of the illicit juror tweeting, Google searching, LinkedIn'ing and Facebooking may very well escape the attention of judges. Most judges find out about juror misuse of Net media from tattling by other jurors or lawyers (perhaps lawyers who feel they are losing the case?).

The general public can already get legal information and/or advice from public legal education websites or from legal clinics and pro bono groups.

Some city councils in the United Kingdom are going one step further. Birmingham and Westminster are teaming up with videoconferencing firm Instant Law UK to offer free legal advice via webcam in public libraries:

"The plan is now to be in 100 locations within 12 months and 360 locations in 24 months. Though it will continue to place kiosks in those shopping centres which have already been identified – with three set to launch at the end of January – the focus is now on libraries. Services will in time be extended to cover non-legal issues such as debt problems."

"Users will access the service through a dedicated computer screen and webcam in a secure location in the library."

It will be interesting to watch this experiment as it unfolds. Will Canadian public libraries follow suit?

The 2011 Website Award of the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) went to the Kenya Law Reports.

The winner was announced in December at an IALL meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Award seeks to recognise and promote free legal information websites that are authoritative, comprehensive, up-to-date, useful, and user-friendly.

Other nominees in 2011 included:

• Europeana
• Global Legal Information Network
• HuriSearch
• International Comparative Legal Guide Series
• Legifrance
• openDOAR
• RIS – Bundeskanzleramt Rechtsinformationssystem
• THOMAS
• War Crimes Research Office, Jurisprudence Collections
• WebLaw

A list of winners from previous years can be found on the IALL website.

David Mao this week became the 23rd Law Librarian of Congress. The Law Library of Congress was established in Washington in 1832 by the United States Congress and is the world's largest law library.

Before joining the library, Mao worked for the Congressional Research Service. He also held positions at Georgetown University and the law firm Covington & Burling.

The Law Library of Congress blog In Custodia Legis published an interview Mr. Mao earlier this week:

The Law Library issued its Strategic Plan for 2011–16, and, in the short term, I aim to continue the progress toward achieving the goals set out in that plan.

One of the major goals of the Law Library is the formation of the One World Law Library (OWLL). This will bring authoritative and authenticated global legal and legislative information from the Law Library of Congress and external sources under one domain and provide access to these resources in a seamless way for the researcher (…)

One of the most interesting facts I’ve learned is that the Law Library holds the world’s most geographically comprehensive collections of foreign legal materials.

The physical and digital collections contain the earliest and the latest publications and reflect the legislative histories of past, current and future jurisdictions. It’s rather astounding to think that, even if a nation hasn’t yet been officially formed, the Law Library will have all the materials necessary for someone to create the legislative history of that nation once it comes into being.

I have always loved law reform commission reports. They are great sources for legal research. Many of the reports provide historical background on an issue and you can often find comparative information about how other jurisdictions have responded to a legal problem.

My highlights from the fall of 2011:

• Of course, the great news is that all of the reports of the former Ontario Law Reform Commission have been digitized (as reported December 12 right here on Slaw)
• The British Columbia Law Institute (BCLI) is launching a two-year project to consider reforms to judge-made rules governing when a person is determined to have the mental capacity to carry out a transaction or enter into a relationship
• Earlier this week, the Law Commission in England published its final report on Intestacy and Family Provision Claims on Death. The report proposes 2 draft bills to bring inheritance law into line with the needs and expectations of modern families, and simplify the law to help the bereaved deal with the property of a deceased family member.
• In late October, the Law Reform Commission of Ireland released its Consultation Paper on Sexual Offences and Capacity to Consent. In the Consultation Paper, the Commission made 15 provisional recommendations for reform, including the repeal and replacement of the existing law on sexual offences involving persons with intellectual disability. The Commission argued that section 5 of Ireland's Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 (a) fails to protect people with intellectual disability from unwanted sexual contact generally and (b) fails to empower people with intellectual disability to realise their right to sexual expression (it does not clearly provide for situations of consensual sex between two persons with intellectual disability). The Commission also looked at practices and laws in England and Wales, Scotland, Canada, and New Zealand.
• In September, the British Columbia Law Institute released a Report on Proposals for Unfair Contracts Relief: "This report recommends reforms to the leading concepts used by contract law to tackle the problem of unfairness. These concepts are unconscionability, duress, undue influence, good faith, and misrepresentation. Over the past years, they have been considered in an increasing number of court decisions. This has led to an expansion of, and a degree of confusion about, their scope. It is now timely to rationalize and consolidate these concepts." The BCLI website also includes a consultation paper on the issue as well as 4 backgrounders.
• The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) released a discussion report on Estate Administration.

Of course, people often ask whether law reform commission reports have any real impact. Not always, but sometimes. In November, the proposed Family Law Act was introduced in the British Columbia legislature after a major review of family legislation in the province. It is intended to overhaul the Family Relations Act. The proposal contains recommendations for changes to family law contained in four reports of the British Columbia Law Institute:

• Report on Pension Division on Marriage Breakdown (BCLI Report No. 44, 2006);
• Report on the Parental Support Obligation in Section 90 of the Family Relations Act (BCLI Report No. 48, 2007);
• Report on Appointing a Guardian and Standby Guardianship (BCLI Report No. 30, 2004); and
• Report on the Need for Uniform Jurisdiction and Choice of Law Rules in Domestic Property Proceedings (BCLI Report No. 1, 1998).

The American group blog Concurring Opinions has posted A Guide to the Eight Most Suspect Types of Law Review Articles. My favourite is number 4:

4. The One-Off

“In my previous article, I made a significant contribution to the literature. In this piece, I will coast on the vapors of that article.”

In the comments section, someone has suggested a ninth category be added:

9. Straight from the Framers!

“In this article, I uncover the original meaning of a clause (phrase, word, or letter) that no one has ever heard of, that no court (or litigant) has ever referred to, and that will never again be relevant.”

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat has published an article about Canadians' perceptions of personal safety and crime, 2009.

Among the highlights:

• In 2009, the vast majority (93%) of Canadians aged 15 years and older living in the provinces said they felt satisfied with their personal safety from crime. This proportion was similar to 2004, the last time this survey was conducted
• Despite higher rates of victimization, younger Canadians were more satisfied with their personal safety from crime than older Canadians. In 2009, 94% of Canadians aged 15 to 24 years said they felt very or somewhat satisfied, compared with 90% of Canadians aged 65 years and older
• Most Canadians said they felt safe at night. About 83% of Canadians said that they were not at all worried when home alone in the evening. Of those who walked alone in their neighbourhood at night, 90% said they felt safe doing so
• About 39% of Canadians reported having used a crime prevention method to protect themselves from becoming a victim of crime in the 12 months preceding the survey. The use of crime prevention measures was more common among Canadians who had been previously victimized (57%) than those who had not (32%)
• The most common crime prevention method, reported by 27% of Canadians, was to change their routine or avoid certain people or places. About 13% said they had installed new locks or security bars and 10% had installed a burglar alarm or motion detector lights
• Canadians living in the eastern part of the country, where rates of both self-reported victimization and police-reported crime are generally lower, reported being more satisfied with their personal safety from crime than those in the west. In 2009, residents of Prince Edward Island were among those with the highest levels of satisfaction (97%) while residents in British Columbia were among those with the lowest (89%).

The numbers were drawn from the 2009 General Social Survey on Victimization, a self-reported survey conducted every five years on Canadians aged 15 years and older living in the 10 provinces.

Canada's national statistical agency has published many studies and reports over the years about crime and victimization.

In a report released this week, a Royal Society of Canada Expert Panel proposes that assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia should be decriminalized for competent individuals who make a free and informed decision that their life is no longer worth living.

The panel concludes:

1. That there is a moral right, grounded in autonomy, for competent and informed individuals who have decided after careful consideration of the relevant facts, that their continuing life is not worth living, to non-interference with requests for assistance with suicide or voluntary euthanasia.
2. That none of the grounds for denying individuals the enjoyment of their moral rights applies in the case of assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. There are no third-party interests, self-regarding duties, or duties toward objective goods that warrant denying people the right to assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. Prophesied undesirable social consequences are not sufficient to negate the right to choose assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia.
3. That health care professionals are not duty-bound to accede to the request of competent and informed individuals who have formulated the uncoerced wish to die, but they may do so. If their religious or moral conscience prevents them from doing so, they are duty bound to refer their patients to a health care professional who will.

The report examined the experience of foreign jurisdictions where assisted dying has been allowed and proposes a system modelled after countries such as the Netherlands where patients may request assisted suicide or euthanasia when a doctor has determined they are competent to make the decision, and have done so voluntarily.

The panel also urges provincial governments to create policies to make clear the circumstances under which Crown prosecutors will not proceed with charges (that is, where there has been a free and informed decision to request assistance to die made by a competent individual).

More background:

• In 1995, the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, published its final report, Of Life and Death. The report has sections on terminology, palliative care, pain control and sedation practices, withdrawal/withholding of life-saving treatment, assisted suicide and euthanasia.
• Late last year, the Library of Parliament published an update to a paper on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Canada
• Earlier this year, the Library of Parliament updated its research publication on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: International Experiences that looked at the debates and experiences of the US, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia and a number of other countries
• The Health Law Institute at Dalhousie University in Halifax provides access to material on a number of end of life topics in its Reading Room
• Slaw's Yosie Saint-Cyr wrote a post on September 9, 2010 entitled Euthanasia Subject of Renewed Debate that discussed the public hearings on euthanasia and assisted suicide in front of Quebec's National Assembly. In that post, she also discussed Canadian case law going back to the early 1990s.

CAIJ, the Centre d'accès à l'information juridique (the network of law libraries associated with the Québec Bar Association), has a revamped website with many new research features:

• the UNIK search engine that allows for simultaneous keyword searching in its caselaw, commentary and Quebec and federal legislation databases
• the eDoctrine collection of free full-text commentary and textbooks including the Développements récents (annual reviews of areas of law), the Collection de droit (Bar School materials), proceedings of the annual Quebec Bar Association congresses and a growing number of treatises from Wilson & Lafleur
• the eLOIS collection of annotated laws (right now in beta): so far, CAIJ offers the Civil Code of Quebec, the provincial Labour Standards Act and the provincial Business Corporations Act – for each legislative section, there is a legislative history, links to parliamentary debates, and links to case law and/or commentary
• enhanced legal news

Some great features that haven't changed include the free JuriBistro TOPO service, the CAIJ knowledgebase of some 2,700 questions and answers compiled by CAIJ's legal researchers based on real inquiries received from lawyers from across Quebec.

If you need to do Quebec legal research and you read French, I highly recommend the CAIJ site.

There is a lot of attention in the USA being paid to the impact of jurors, reporters and members of the public using social networking technologies in the courtroom. Canada is no stranger to the debate.

There is not as much material on the ethics of judges using the same tools such as Facebook or Twitter.

Michael Crowell of the School of Government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has written a paper on Judicial Ethics and Social Networking Sites that looks at the issue:

For some time now state bar regulatory agencies have been addressing the effect of electronic communication on traditional ethical rules for lawyers ― the extent to which law firm websites constitute advertising, whether e-mail inquiries establish an attorney/client relationship, and so on. Likewise, judges hearing cases have faced new legal issues involving electronic discovery and searches of computers. Judges are becoming familiar, too, with problems of jurors communicating with the outside world and conducting their own research via their Blackberries, smart phones and other devices.

Compared to the information available on those other electronic communication issues, there is relatively little reference material for judges concerning their own social networking and the Code of Judicial Conduct. The purpose of this paper is to share some information addressing questions of judges’ personal use of social networks.

Crowell's paper deals with the situation in the United States.

Participation in social networks by judges in the U.S. has reached a level that prompted the Florida judicial ethics committee to issue an edict in 2009 that judges and lawyers should not be Facebook 'friends,' to avoid appearance of conflict in the event they end up in the same courtroom. Other US state committees on judicial ethics have also taken positions warning judges about the perils of networking.

The Canadian Judicial Council has not yet drafted rules for Canadian judges but it appears to be monitoring the situation south of the border. It has produced a number of recent publications on IT security but no definite guidelines about judges and social networks seem to exist at the moment.

The Council is made up of 39 members and is chaired by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin.

Cross-posted to the Library Boy blog.

A few days ago, Antonio Cassese, a renowned international war crimes expert, died at his home in Florence, Italy at the age of 74.

A well-known professor of international criminal law, he was appointed in 1993 as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, based at the Hague. It was the first international criminal tribunal since the ones that followed World War II.

Among his early decisions, seen as controversial at the time but widely accepted since, were several that changed basic precepts of international criminal law. One was that war crimes could be punished not only in wars between nations, but also in conflicts within a particular country. In another, he wrote that even if there was no war going on, massacres, torture and other atrocities committed by governments or groups could be found to be crimes against humanity and punished accordingly.

In 2009, he became president of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon established by the United Nations to try the alleged assassins of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, who was killed in 2005 in a car bomb attack in Beirut.

Here is a list of his many writings from the Worldcat catalogue.

The library of the Supreme Court of Canada recently updated its online bibliography about the court. New material from the period 2008-2011 has been added.

The bibliography contains articles, textbooks, earlier bibliographies, rules of practice and statistics about the Court.

Speeches by Justices of the Supreme Court of Canada as well as scholarly articles about the court's rulings are not included.

[Cross-posted to Library Boy]

I had written about the Just A Click Away project in January 2011. Just A Click Away is a Canada-wide initiative on public legal education and information (PLEI).

It organized a successful conference in Vancouver last February on how to use Internet and social media technologies to better educate the general public about the law.

Just A Click Away is continuing its efforts to bring the law closer to every Canadian and has just announced that it has received funding for Phase 2 of its work with a focus on "Supporting a Culture of Sharing".

Phase 2 involves 4 organizations: PovNet (a poverty-law network), Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO), Éducaloi (Quebec-based public legal education site), and Courthouse Libraries BC.

Phase 2 will have four (4) elements:

• An online community of practice. Led by PovNet, we will provide a private online space for PLEI practitioners to have frank conversations and share experiences and learning about technology and PLEI on an ongoing basis.
• A series of webinar broadcasts. Led by Éducaloi, we will hold a series of 8 broadcast webinars over a two year period where PLEI practitioners, managers, and funders from across Canada can learn about key topics relating to technology and PLEI.
• A series of hand-on web labs. Led by CLEO, we will hold a series of 8 hands-on interactive workshops over the web aimed at PLEI practitioners who work directly with online technologies.
• Documentation of best practices. Led by Courthouse Libraries BC, we will create online PLEI best practices guides, developed from the exchanges in the online community of practice space, the webinar broadcasts and the hands-on web labs.

The Supreme Court of Canada begins another season of hearings on Tuesday, October 11, 2011. If you click on the name of any upcoming case, you can find a summary of the issues as well as copies of factums that were filed by the parties with the Court's Registry.

The Sept. 30, 2011 issue of The Lawyers Weekly presents some of the big cases that will be heard this fall:

"Veiled witnesses, copyright wars and hate speech are some of the hot-button issues facing the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) in the busy fall session starting next month."

The Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads of Prosecutions Committee today released its new report on wrongful convictions entitled The Path to Justice: Preventing Wrongful Convictions.

It was written by a committee of senior prosecutors and police officers and is follow-up to a 2005 report entitled "Prevention of Miscarriages of Justice":

"The format of this update mirrors the original report: it provides a summary of developments in the law and reports on efforts to implement the 2005 recommendations. Those recommendations are re-examined in light of events over the past six years and, where appropriate, modifications are suggested. It also highlights international developments since 2005 and summarizes the key findings of Canadian commissions of inquiry held since the 2005 Report."

"The update canvasses the latest information on the most important causes of wrongful convictions, as described in the 2005 Report, including tunnel vision; eyewitness mis-identification; false confessions; use of in-custody informers; and inappropriate use of forensic evidence and expert testimony. Each of these issues is discussed in the context of what has been learned since 2005, through research and commissions of inquiry, for example."

(…)

"As set out in Chapter 10, there has been a phenomenal level of educational activity among police and prosecutors about the causes of wrongful convictions. Today there is a higher level of awareness than ever before among Canadian police and prosecutors about the causes of wrongful convictions and what can be done to prevent them, as the issue of wrongful convictions has achieved an unprecedented prominence in discussions at the highest level of police and prosecution organizations. Education about the phenomenon of miscarriages of justice is now a staple of training for rookie and senior officers and prosecutors alike."

"There is now a wealth of resources available to police and prosecutors on wrongful convictions. For example, a select list of Web sites is attached at Appendix A. Through this Subcommittee and its expert members, it is now clear that Canadian police, prosecutors and even the judiciary know where to turn for information and expertise on wrongful convictions."

"That said, of great concern is that in this era of fiscal restraint and new pressures on the justice system, there is a danger that this promising new level of activity will inevitably diminish. Thus the central message of this report must be the need for continued vigilance."

Michael S. Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg and inventor of the idea for the eBook way way way back in 1971 in the pre-WWW, pre-smart phone, pre-Kindle, pre-commercialization of everything on the Internet era, died earlier this week. He was 64. Librarians (and computer geeks) thought the world of him.

The Project Gutenberg website has published an obituary:

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart's life's work, spanning over 40 years.

More on his passing:

• Michael S. Hart (1947-2011): The founder of Project Gutenberg (CIO Magazine)
• Michael S. Hart, e-book inventor and Project Gutenberg founder, dies at 64 (Endgagdet)
• Michael Hart, creator of the ebook, dies (The Telegraph)
• Michael Hart, inventor of the ebook, dies aged 64 (The Guardian)
• Project Gutenberg founder and inventor of the ebook, Michael Hart, dies (ZDNet)

Courtney Minick has written a post on Universal Citation for State Codes over at VoxPopuLII, a blog published at the Cornell University Law School.

She discusses the spread of universal, or vendor-neutral, citation in the United States. The bulk of the article is devoted to developing neutral citation for state laws, but one detail attracted my attention. In contrast to Canada, where neutral citation has been widely adopted for caselaw, the practice is still not very widespread South of the border:

To date, 16 states assign universal citations to their highest court opinions. (To date, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have adopted universal citation for caselaw.) Illinois is the most recent state to adopt the measure (in June 2011)…

In March 2010, Ivan Mokanov of the Université de Montréal, wrote on VoxPopuLII about neutral citation practices in Canada. He pointed out that "nearly three quarters of citations to recent case law [in Canada] use the neutral citation".

The LISNews library-related site has been running a series on IT Security for Libraries.

The most recent part covers 20 Common Security Myths:

1. You have nothing important to steal
2. Having antivirus software makes you completely safe
3. Using Mac/Linux makes you safe
4. Patches and updates make things worse and break them
5. You can look at a site and know it's safe and not serving bad stuff
6. Using a firewall makes you safe
7. Complex frequently changed passwords make you safe
8. Avoiding IE makes me safe
9. If an email comes from a familiar face it's ok
10. If a link comes from a friend on Facebook/twitter it's safe
11. If I just click a link it's ok
12. Only porn, gambling, and other “sketchy” sites are dangerous
13. Only naive users get infected with malware and viruses
14. You can only get infected if you download files
15. If I'm compromised I will know it
16. Infections come from email
17. P2P and torrents are safe
18. Hardware can't spread or come preinfected with malware
19. If I never log off / restart I can't get infected . And finally…
20. I'm too smart to get infected… Yes, you and me both!

Somehow, I am feeling just a little bit more paranoid right now.

Last week, the Law Commission of Ontario released its proposed Draft Framework for the Law as it Affects Older Adults:

"The Framework is intended to assist with the development and evaluation of laws, policies and practices to ensure that the realities of the circumstances and experiences of older adults are taken into account, and that laws, policies and programs promote positive outcomes for these members of society."

"It is accompanied by an extensive Interim Report, which sets out the research and analysis which form the basis for the Framework, and provides examples of its implications and implementation."

"It is built upon and expands on work already done in this area, including the National Framework on Aging and Seniors Policy Lens, the International Principles for Older Persons and other international documents, the Senate Special Committee Report on Aging, the work of the Ontario Human Rights Commission on human rights and older age, and many other important initiatives that have been undertaken both in Canada and abroad over the last fifteen years."

The Interim Report is available on the Commission website. The Commission is holding public consultations on the Draft Framework that run until November 18, 2011.

This has been a busy year in Canada when it comes to research in the field of "elder law":

• The British Columbia Law Institute released A Practical Guide to Elder Abuse and Neglect Law in Canada
• The Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia released its final report on Seniors-Only Housing
• The Canadian Centre for Elder Law marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15) by publishing a discussion paper entitled Moving From Scrutiny to Strategy: An Analysis of Key Canadian Elder Abuse and Neglect Cases

The British newspaper The Guardian has compiled data on who is being arrested for the recent riots in the United Kingdom.

It makes for a fascinating story:

In an indication of the tough justice being meted out to people accused of offences related to this week's riots, a Guardian analysis of more than 120 cases before magistrates courts so far has found the majority of defendants being remanded in custody – even when they have pleaded guilty to relatively minor offences.

As hundreds of cases fly through specially-convened night sittings of magistrates courts, the Guardian is embarking on a project to catalogue who is going to court and what is happening to them.

People facing court charged with riot-related offences are overwhelmingly young, male and unemployed. Those who are found guilty are receiving prison sentences – or being passed onto higher courts for sentencing. Out of the 1.7m cases heard in magistrates courts last year, only 3.5% were remanded to jail. These figures from this week show a rate of nearly 60%.

The accused have been charged mainly with burglary or violent disorder, we have not yet identified a single charge of riot – which is also an offence.

We wanted to know the answers to some of the key questions: how old are they? Are they in work? Where do they come from?

The data is being continuously updated as part of the newspaper's coverage and analysis of events.

Related stories in The Guardian:

• UK riots: girl, 11, and former grammar school student among those in court
• Fears of rough justice as courts rush to process riot arrests

Let the speculation begin.

According to an article in The Hill Times, the process to choose the replacements for Supreme Court of Canada Justices Louise Charron and Justice Ian Binnie starts today.

Earlier this year, Charron and Binnie, both from Ontario, announced they were resigning from the Supreme Court.

As The Hill Times article explains:

MPs and human rights lawyers say they expect Prime Minister Stephen Harper will attempt to swing the pendulum of Supreme Court of Canada rulings toward the prevailing views of Conservative Party supporters as he fills the court’s two vacancies in a secretive and high-stakes process that begins its final stages this week.

An ad hoc panel of MPs from all three main parties in the Commons will meet Thursday on Parliament Hill behind closed doors to review a list of potential nominees that Justice Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.) will present them for an advisory opinion on their candidacy.

The MPs will be sworn to secrecy about anything that transpires in the hearing, including the names of the candidates, as they reduce the pool of candidates to an unranked list of six from which Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.), in collaboration with Mr. Nicholson, will eventually choose the final nominees to fill the court’s two vacancies for Ontario.

The Library of Parliament has released a document outlining the current and emerging issues that will face the new Canadian Parliament elected on May 2, 2011.

William Young, Parliamentary Librarian, explains:

"The pages that follow illustrate the kind of work we can do for you: 27 concise and easy-to-read briefings on subjects ranging from cybercrime to the impact of demographic changes on public policy. The issues are presented in summary form and represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our subject-matter expertise (…)"

"The sheer volume of information presented at the beginning of a new Parliament may be stimulating, but taking it all in can be a challenge. We hope this publication gives you a good overview not only of today’s current and emerging issues, but also the skills and knowledge your Library offers for your use."

Among the issues of legal significance that the document deals with are:

• Senate reform
• ethics and public office
• aboriginal claims
• developments in sentencing
• bilingualism of Supreme Court justices
• human trafficking
• trade agreements
• cybercrime

The Library of Parliament's research publications are a great resource for understanding bills and issues.

In mid-May, the Council of Canadian Academic Law Library Directors adopted the Calgary Statement on Free Access to Legal Information.

The Statement, that promotes the principles of open access in legal scholarly publishing in Canada and free access to legal information in society, follows the Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship adopted by the law libraries of major American universities in late 2008.

The Durham statement called for two things: (1) open access publication of law school–published journals; and (2) an end to print publication of law journals, coupled with a commitment to keeping the electronic versions available in 'stable, open, digital formats.'

On June 14th, the non-profit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre launched an online portal on Business & Children.

The Portal covers issues such as child labour, dangerous products, education, forced labour, pollution damaging health, pregnancy discrimination, sexual exploitation and trafficking. The content comes from many sources including NGOs, international organizations such as UNICEF and the ILO, governments, journalists, academics, and companies themselves. It features responses by companies to allegations of misconduct as well as positive initiatives they, NGOs and other organizations have taken to protect the rights of children.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre tracks the human rights impacts (positive & negative) of 5000 companies in over 180 countries. Its work is supported by some 20 academic partners in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.

The Canadian Centre for Elder Law marked World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (June 15) by publishing a discussion paper entitled Moving From Scrutiny to Strategy: An Analysis of Key Canadian Elder Abuse and Neglect Cases.

The Centre is affiliated with the British Columbia Law Institute.

The discussion paper "reviews a number of recent elder abuse and neglect cases that have been recorded in Canadian court decisions – largely criminal cases. The cases serve as a backdrop for highlighting social dynamics at play in elder abuse cases, comparing relevant legislation across the country, clarifying legal obligations to respond to elder abuse under legislation and professional codes of ethics, and making recommendations for protocol and policy development, and professional development and training to support the practice of health care and social service workers in the area of elder abuse and neglect."

Last January, fellow Slawyer Michael Lines wrote about the Centre's Practical Guide to Elder Abuse and Neglect Law in Canada.

BAILII, the British And Irish Legal Information Institute, reports that its future is at risk because of a funding shortfall.

Like its Canadian counterpart CanLII, BAILII seeks to make access to primary legal materials free to everyone via the Internet. They are members of the Free Access to Law Movement which seeks to ensure free, open publication of legal information throughout the world.

According to exchanges on the UK-based LIS-LAW listserv, a few major sponsors have withdrawn financial support and further support from the Ministry of Justice is "under review".

Nominations are open until June 20, 2011 for the 12th Annual Justicia Awards that reward "outstanding broadcast and print or Web journalism that fosters public awareness and understanding of the Canadian justice system".

The Awards are given each year by the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) and the Department of Justice Canada for French or English stories in two categories: print and broadcast media. The 2011 Awards will be presented at the CBA's Canadian Legal Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia in August.

Last year, a team from the Victoria Times Colonist was the winner in the print category for a series on access to information in the B.C. courts, published in February 2010. A team from Radio-Canada's Enquête was the winner in the broadcast category for a February 2010 show on the practice of paying informants.

The eligibility criteria and a complete list of past winners are included on the CBA Justicia Award website.

The international human rights organization Amnesty International turns 50 on May 28th.

Not surprisingly for a campaigning organization, Amnesty will mark the occasion with a Global Call to Action:

"Amnesty International’s new Global Call to Action includes a digital 'Earth Candle' – a significant online breakthrough that allows activists for the first time to see an overview of the organization’s worldwide actions, and how their own actions add to this force for change."

"This is accompanied by a new drive – 'Be one more, ask one more, act once more' – that aims to achieve a huge collective impact worldwide. It urges everyone – including Amnesty International’s three million members and supporters in more than 150 countries and territories – to encourage at least one other person to take action for human rights."

"The launch of the global initiative will see dozens of countries from Argentina to Ghana to Turkey to New Zealand holding a symbolic toast to freedom. This global event pays tribute to the tale of two Portuguese students imprisoned for raising their glasses to liberty – an injustice that so outraged British lawyer Peter Benenson that he launched Amnesty International on 28 May 1961 (…)

"It has played a leading role in making torturers international outlaws, in ending the untouchable status of leaders accused of human rights crimes, in the creation of the International Criminal Court and in achieving unstoppable momentum towards a death penalty-free world."

"In 1977, Amnesty International was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

More background on founder Peter Benenson. And here is an abridged version of the May 1961 article by Benenson that launched Amnesty International: The Forgotten Prisoners.

The University of Toronto is hosting a cyber-surveillance event this week that includes the typical academic workshops, as well as an artistic component. The event and the workshop are part The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting, a research project funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

From the press release:

Digitally mediated surveillance is an increasingly prevalent, but still largely invisible, aspect of everyday life. As we work, play and negotiate public spaces, on-line and off, we produce a growing stream of personal digital data of interest to unseen others. CCTV cameras hosted by private and public actors survey and record our movements in public space, as well as in the workplace. Corporate interests track our behaviour as we navigate both social and transactional cyberspaces, data mining our digital doubles and packaging users as commodities for sale to the highest bidder. Governments continue to collect personal information on-line with unclear guidelines for retention and use, while law enforcement increasingly use internet technology to monitor not only criminals but activists and political dissidents as well, with worrisome implications for democracy.

Panelists will address the practical outcomes of theses issues, including pending policy matters such as lawful access legislation, the proposed Canada-US security perimeter and the security legacy of mega-events like the G20. They will address the tension between the clamour for security and the sanctity of civil liberties, questioning the benefits of trading one for the other.

Research papers on the workshop themes are available online and the range is incredible.

The rise of the so-called "surveillance society" is a topic that has attracted the attention of many Slaw contributors in the past. I doubt this is the last Slaw post on the subject.

This Quebec-born boy still has trouble fathoming why so many people are going gaga over the English Royal Wedding. Don't we all have hockey playoffs to think about? And isn't there that little thing to do with the federal elections and Jack's unexpected Big Orange Wave?

Never mind.

To help us out, the Harvard Law School Library has published a post on Royal Wedding: Pomp, Circumstance, and Law to explain all the legalities about how people in the British royal family get hitched.

Apparently, it is a lot more complicated than simply showing up at city hall, calling a florist and worrying about your mom crying during the ceremony:

The carriages are polished, the cakes baked, and the trees are in the Abbey (really!)…if you plan to celebrate your Anglo-American legal heritage by putting on your tiara at 4am tomorrow morning, it may be of interest that Prince William and Catherine Middleton have more legal requirements involved in their getting hitched than the average British couple.

Alan Borovoy, General Counsel Emeritus of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, is the recipient of the 2011 Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada. The Award is given by the Canadian Library Association:

Throughout a remarkable career as one of the undisputed leaders in the civil rights movement in Canada, Mr Borovoy has been a tireless advocate for freedom of expression, along with its corollaries freedom of the press and freedom of association; and equally activist for equality and procedural fairness. June Callwood, a recipient in 2006 of the same Award, dubbed him "Mr. Civil Liberties."

Mr Borovy has been at one with the Canadian library community, whose core values include a strong commitment to intellectual freedom, a freedom under continual challenge and frequently unpopular to defend Mr Borovoy's voice has always been there with the Canadian library community's to combat both censorship and episodic public apathy enabling it, and he has referred to Canada's librarians as "the Clark Kents of political action."

The Supreme Court has wrapped up its two-day hearing into the federal government's request that the Court rule on the constitutionality of proposed legislation to create a national securities regulator.

Appeal courts in Alberta and Quebec have ruled that the proposal would violate the Constitution because it would intrude on provincial powers.

The facta of all the parties and intervenors of the case are available on the Court's website.

As well, the hearings were broadcast via webcast and the webcasts are archived.

The Department of Finance has posted background material on the issue, as well as links to the proposed legislation.

The good folk over at 3 Geeks and a Law Blog have asked readers to contribute Your Favorite PowerPoint Story:

We had a lot of traffic, comments and feedback when Toby wrote his "Don't Use PowerPoint" post last week. We thought we'd play off of that post to ask the readers to comment on some of their PowerPoint stories (we said they could be good or bad… but, we preferred bad) and share them with us for this week's Elephant Post. I've used PowerPoint for many, many years, and it is a rare occasion that everything that worked on my PC at home or in the office ended up working perfectly at the presentation.

We actually only ended up with one "horror story." Which makes me think that some of you were just too embarrassed to tell us about some of your experiences. Hopefully, for those of you brave enough, you'll add your story in the comments.

At a job interview in a past life (not for my current POW – i.e. place of work), I was asked to show up with a PowerPoint presentation on a topic of my choice related to the job. Of course, the techies had trouble connecting the laptop I had been loaned to their network projector, then, for some reason the PowerPoint program wouldn't load, etc.

So, no PowerPoint.

I had to improvise: I talked for 20 minutes and made lots of vigorous hand and arm gestures for emphasis. It was either that or spontaneously combust. Things actually went well, I think. Almost got the job.

The Montreal Gazette yesterday published a profile of LexUM, the outfit that operates the free legal information service CanLII and that also publishes the decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada.

The article briefly explores plans by LexUM to expand its business into the private legal market. LexUM recently went private, severing its ties with the University of Montreal.

Today Lexum still operates CanLII – a go-to site frequently consulted by lawyers, judges and other legal professionals as well as members of the public – but has set its sights on making inroads into the lucrative and burgeoning market for legal information management both in Canada and around the world (…)

On the legal practice front, Poulin said Lexum wants to use its technology to provide law firms with systems, say through an intranet, to provide easy access to all internal briefs and notes on cases, linked to a CanLII compilation of pertinent case law and legislation.

Poulin said statistics estimate lawyers in Canada each spend an average of $2,000 a year on legal information, a market that could easily be worth $15 million to $20 million considering there are 80,000 lawyers in Canada. Another $40 million to $50 million is spent by institutions that use legal information systems to manage their internal knowledge and also need to be able to keep up to date with legislation.

TV Ontario's flagship current affairs program The Agenda featured a discussion last night on TV cameras in the courtroom.

Interestingly, only the judge on the panel seemed to be in favour of the idea.

Panel members were:

• Jamie Chaffe, president of the Canadian Association of Crown Counsel
• Jean Cumming, editor-in-chief of Lexpert
• Mayo Moran, dean of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law
• William Trudell, chair of the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers
• Raymond Wyant, a provincial court judge in Manitoba

The Research Instruction and Patron Services (RIPS) division of the American Association of Law Libraries has just released its 19th Annual National Legal Research Teach-In Kit.

Every year, RIPS gathers together PowerPoint presentations, research assignments, lesson plans, syllabi, and instructional handouts on a variety of topics. It is a great resource if you need inspiration for developing your own legal research material. There is also a list of kits from previous years on the RIPS website.

Canadian law librarians have also been sharing instructional materials thanks to the efforts of the Courthouse and Law Society Libraries Special Interest Group of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries.

Earlier this week, the Public Commission on Legal Aid in British Columbia released its report on the sad state of legal aid in the province.

Commissioner Leonard T. Doust makes 7 overarching findings:

• The legal aid system is failing needy individuals and families, the justice system, and our communities.
• Legal information is not an adequate substitute for legal assistance and representation.
• Timing of accessing legal aid is key.
• There is a broad consensus concerning the need for innovative, client-focused legal aid services.
• Steps must be taken to meet legal aid needs in rural communities.
• More people should be eligible for legal aid.
• Legal aid should be fully funded as an essential public service.

To remedy the situation, he presents a number of recommendations, including:

• Recognize legal aid as an essential public service.
• Develop a new approach to define core services and priorities.
• Modernize and expand financial eligibility.
• Establish regional legal aid centres and innovative service delivery.
• There must be greater collaboration between public and private legal aid service providers.
• Provide more support to legal aid providers.

For additional news coverage, you can read:

• Legal aid fails B.C.'s most vulnerable, commission concludes (Vancouver Sun, March 9, 2011)
• Attorney-general rejects claims that B.C. legal-aid is in crisis (Globe and Mail, March 8, 2011)
• B.C. not providing most basic legal aid needs: report (Legal Feeds – blog of Canadian Lawyer and Law Times, March 9, 2011)

The Supreme Court of Canada has issued a Special Edition of its Bulletin of Proceedings containing a statistical overview of its activities for the period 2000-2010.

There are stats for cases filed, applications for leave submitted, appeals heard, judgments (including number of unanimous vs. split decisions), and average time lapses (time lines in the life of a case at the Court).

Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin spoke last week at the University of Toronto's Access to Civil Justice for Middle Income Canadians Colloquium about how ordinary people risk being priced out of the justice system. In her speech, she called on governments, academics, judges and lawyers to work to ensure better access to justice for all Canadians.

Her speech and the colloquium attracted some media attention:

• Access to justice becoming a privilege of the rich, judge warns (Globe and Mail, February 10, 2011)
• Legal system doesn't work for ordinary people, top judge says (Vancouver Sun, February 14, 2011)

More about the University of Toronto's Middle Income Access to Civil Justice Initiative

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), based in Strasbourg, recently released its annual report for 2010.

The ECHR hears complaints from individuals living in any of the member states of the Council of Europe about violations of the European Convention of Human Rights. The Council of Europe is one of the continent's oldest political organizations, founded in 1949. It has 47 member countries.

Among the statistical highlights of 2010:

• approximately half of the judgments delivered by the Court concerned four of the Council of Europe’s forty-seven member States: Turkey (278 judgments), Russia (217 judgments), Romania (143 judgments) and Ukraine (109 judgments)
• the Court delivered a total of 1,499 judgments, slightly down on the 1,625 judgments delivered in 2009
• on 1 June 2010 Protocol No. 14 to the Convention entered into force with the aim of guaranteeing the Court’s long-term effectiveness by optimising the screening and processing of applications. Among other matters covered, it established a new admissibility criterion and a new judicial formation – the single judge – to deal with inadmissible cases. In all, 38,576 cases were declared inadmissible or struck out of the list in 2010 (compared with 33,067 in 2009). The number of cases declared admissible was 2,474 (compared with 2,141 in 2009)
• more than a third of the judgments in which the Court found a violation included a violation of Article 6 of the Convention, whether on account of the fairness or the length of the proceedings. More than 20% of violations found by the Court concern the right to life or the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention)
• more than 93% of the Court’s judgments since its creation in 1959 have been delivered between 1998 and 2010

Just A Click Away, a Canada-wide initiative on public legal education and information (PLEI) being coordinated by Courthouse Libraries BC, is organizing a two-day intensive conference in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 23 & 24, 2011.

The conference is about how to use Internet and social media technologies to better educate the general public about the law and provide resources for individuals to solve legal problems.

As a run up to the conference, Just A Click Away has been running a webinar series that features different approaches being used to provide online PLEI.

So far, 2 webinars have been offered (they are archived online):

• Tuesday January 11, 2011 featuring Clicklaw (British Columbia) and CLEONet (Ontario)
• Tuesday January 25, 2011 featuring LawNet (formerly ACJNet – Canada and Alberta), PovNet (poverty law) and LawHelp.org (US pro bono network)

The next webinar is on February 8, 2011 and features Educaloi (Quebec) and www.inmylanguage.org (Ontario).

Michel Bastarache, a former Supreme Court of Canada Justice, submitted his official report yesterday into allegations of influence peddling in the nomination of municipal and provincial court judges in Quebec.

The commission that he led had been created by Quebec Premier Jean Charest after the province's former Justice Minister Marc Bellemare alleged that he been forced to name three judges to the bench at the behest of Quebec Liberal Party organizers and fundraisers.

Bastarache rejected the allegations but he did document gaps in the judicial nomination process in Quebec in terms of transparency, writing that the process was vulnerable to all manner of interventions and open to potential partisan favouritism.

He recommends that the current vetting system be removed from the Justice Department. In its place, a new law should be introduced to create an independent secretariat for judicial nominations, to be composed of 30 members, including judges, lawyers and members of the public. For each nomination, there would be a panel of 7 members.

The secretariat would not answer to the Justice Department and would report to the legislature. Representatives of the public would be selected by the National Assembly.

In the wake of last weekend's mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona, I thought it might be useful to see what kinds of gun control laws exist in that state.

According to a number of sources, in the state of Arizona, pretty much anyone can buy pretty much anything that shoots. No questions asked.

The Legal Community Against Violence is a California-based public interest law centre dedicated to preventing gun violence. Last July, it published Gun Laws Matter: A Comparison of State Firearms Laws and Statistics. All 50 states were ranked according to 25 different polices. Arizona came last:

• Arizona allows carrying firearms openly or concealed without a permit
• Requires some property owners to allow firearms in vehicles in parking areas
• Allows loaded guns in establishments that serve alcohol
• Declares firearms and ammunition made and kept in the state not subject to federal law
• Allows no substantial local regulation of firearms
• Imposes almost no regulation on firearms (e.g. has not restricted military-style weapons, does not regulate ammunition or firearms dealers, does not require handgun safety features, waiting period, licensing, background checks for private sales, or locking devices, etc.)

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is named after James S. Brady, the White House Press Secretary who was shot in the head in 1981 in the attempt on US President Ronald Reagan's life. Brady survived but was left partially paralyzed for life. The Campaign keeps a scorecard of US state gun laws. Arizona gets only 2 points out of a possible 100. In Arizona, dangerous and mentally deranged people can waltz into a gun show and buy anything they want without any background checks for cash. No questions asked.

Other sources include:

• GunPolicy.org: hosted by the School of Public Health, Sydney, Australia, this site offers an RSS news feed, and features headlines, abstracts and Web links to gun policy-related articles and policies from around the world
• Firearms Research Digest : database of social science, criminology, law reviews, medical and public health research concerning firearms (2002-2009), compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. There is an advanced search page that allows for searching by keyword, title, author, topic (subject taxonomy), publication, and year range.

The Ontario government this week made public the final report of an advisory panel on SLAPP suits (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation).

SLAPP suits typically take the form of abusive defamation lawsuits aimed at shutting down criticism by non-governmental organizations or citizen lobby groups. Targets of SLAPPs in various parts of North America have been local residents, neighbourhood associations, municipal governments, and peaceful protesters, who have been sued for acts such as reporting bylaw violations, speaking at municipal meetings or even just picketing and circulating petitions.

The panel recommends that Ontario adopt anti-SLAPP legislation to protect the freedom of the
public to participate in matters of public interest:

"[19] Advocates of legislation who made submissions to the Panel tended to agree on
its main characteristics:

• It should provide a speedy and cheap method to stop lawsuits if those suits were brought for an improper purpose, namely to harass or intimidate the defendants;
• It should put the onus on plaintiffs to prove that their lawsuits were not improper;
• It should help rebalance an inequality of financial resources between the parties, possibly by an order that the plaintiff should pay the defendants’ costs at the outset of the litigation;
• It should provide stronger legal protection for citizens engaged in public participation, such as through special defences;
• It should deter people from bringing such suits in the first place, by exposing plaintiffs, and possibly their directors and officers, and lawyers, to awards of damages or even punitive damages.
• Its principles should apply to the actions of administrative tribunals as well as to lawsuits in court. The recent application to the Ontario Municipal Board for a very large costs award in a planning matter was frequently cited as having had an intimidating effect well beyond that one case, even though the Board ultimately declined to award costs after a lengthy hearing."

Quebec and many American states already have anti-SLAPP laws.

Background on SLAPPs:

• SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out: “George W. Pring and Penelope Canan explore the full range of SLAPP stories in this first study of SLAPPs— retaliatory lawsuits by real estate developers; teachers; police; politicians; opponents of civil rights; consumers' rights; women's rights; and many others. This comprehensive book examines what happens to the targets of SLAPPs and what is happening to public participation in American politics. Addressing the ultimate dilemma—what can be done to turn the tables and fight back—Pring and Canan offer concrete, well-supported, balanced solutions for preventing, managing, and curing SLAPPs at all levels of government. ”
• Defamation and SLAPPs (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, University of Ottawa): “The plaintiff’s goal in a SLAPP is not to win the lawsuit, but is rather to silence a critic by instilling fear of large legal costs and the spectre of large damage awards. Despite their right to free speech, critics may be frightened into silence…
• Corporate Retaliation Against Consumers: The Status of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in Canada (Public Interest Advocacy Centre): “The report describes a number of lawsuits or threats of a lawsuit in Canada that fit the definition of a SLAPP. This evidence suggests that SLAPPs are very much a Canadian phenomenon and have been initiated against consumers for public criticism of products or services as well as against individuals for advocating on environmental issues. The report briefly analyses the constitutional questions raised by SLAPPs and draws comparisons to the constitutional and judicial treatment of SLAPPs in the United States.”
• California Anti-SLAPP Project: “The Project is a public interest law firm that provides assistance to people on the receiving end of SLAPPs. About half the states in the United States have enacted anti-SLAPP legislation and the website provides links to case law and statutes for California and other states. As well, the site offers other resources, including a bibliography on the issue ”
• SLAPP’s in Australia (Center for Media and Democracy Sourcewatch): “The following is the beginning of a list of Australian and New Zealand cases where civil litigation has transformed public debate into legal cases. There are all sorts of definitions of SLAPP suits, but the fundamental issue is the chilling effect on free speech. Thus, the primary definition used in compiling the list is that the cases have had, or could reasonably be assumed to have had a chilling effect on the rights and ability of people to participate in public debate and political protest. ”

England's top judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge (that's a great name!) has complained that "impenetrable" criminal justice legislation is causing major delays in British trials.

The remarks are contained in the most recent annual report of the Court of Appeal Criminal Division.

In his introduction, Lord Judge writes:

"It has been another year of unremitting commitment to the administration of criminal justice. That is as it should be. What remains less tolerable is the continuing burden of comprehending and applying impenetrable legislation, primarily but not exclusively in relation to sentencing. The search for the legislative intention in the context of criminal justice legislation makes unreasonable demands on the intellectual efforts of judges and lawyers. It all takes time, very much more time than it took even a decade ago, to grapple with the diffculties. The diffculties are not confned to the workings of this Court: they apply to every Crown Court and Magistrates’ Court throughout the jurisdiction. The search for principle takes longer and longer, and in the meantime cases awaiting trial are delayed, to the disadvantage of the defendants awaiting trial, the witnesses to the events which bring the defendants to court, and the victims of those alleged crimes."

It is fascinating to see the different ways the British press covers this sort of normally dry annual report. Here are a few examples:

• Top judge slams 'impenetrable' laws (UK Press Association) – straightforward summary
• 'Unrelenting' pressure on Court of Appeal (Law Society Gazette) – practical
• Even judges are confused by the law… says Britain's top judge (Daily Mail) – headline humanizes judges
• Top judge complains about 'sex with corpses' rules – Parliament is burdening the courts with too many laws and rules on sentencing, including detailed guidelines for dealing with necrophilia, England’s most senior judge has said (The Telegraph) – now that headline has a little je ne sais quoi, doesn't it?

Earlier this week, Ontario Ombudsman André Marin released his report into the use of a secret regulation that gave police what he called “extravagant” and "likely illegal" powers to crack down on peaceful people protesting last summer's G20 summit in Toronto or to arrest uninvolved, simply curious citizens caught in the vicinity of the security fence around the summit location.

So, you say: yet another official report that repeats the old refrain "cops go overboard, violate civil liberties". La-dee-dah, big whoop, what else is new? Either you're a law and order fan – so these reports do not impress you. Or you are a civil libertarian, and you say you already suspected this all along. Nothing new, right?

What many people have overlooked is contained in Marin's brief remarks about the essential contribution of social media in writing the report:

Our report is full of stories from people who encountered this treatment, as well as photos that capture the unforgettable scenes of those two days. For the first time, we used social media in our investigation to ask members of the public to come forward, and to track events as they happened. People responded in droves with their stories, their photos and their videos, including some that have never been made public before today. To my knowledge, this is the first time that any ombudsman investigation has used social media, and I can attest that it has been a very useful tool. I also want to thank all those who came to us with information.

The social media genie is truly out of the bottle.

The National Security Archive, based at George Washington University, has provided a guide explaining How to Decipher a State Department Cable:

"This guide … might come in handy as you peruse the 251,287 Department of State cables recently released by wikileaks (…)"

"At the Archive, we have lots of practice reading declassified government documents. Since we will be using this space to share with you some documents from our trove of government releases, we thought it would be useful to give you some tips on what to look for in these documents. Several of our experienced analysts have created a series of 'cheat sheets' for different types of agency records."

The National Security Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act in the USA. The Archive also serves as a repository of government records on topics pertaining to the national security, foreign, intelligence, and economic policies of the United States.

The Archive has won lawsuits to bring into the public domain confidential materials on the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Iran-Contra Affair and other historical controversies.

It receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute.

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, based at the University of Alberta, has announced that it is moving to York University.

The Forum undertakes research to improve the civil justice system for Canadians by:

• 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

On the Library Boy blog, I have mentioned the Forum on a number of occasions:

• Canadian Civil Justice Reform Database (August 11, 2007): "The Inventory contains descriptions of reform initiatives from across the country, each described according to a standard format that includes information on the purpose, development, implementation, and evaluation of the reform …"
• New Canadian Network for Evidence-Based Legal Research (October 20, 2007): "The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice website mentions a new Research in Action program devoted to [D]eveloping the capacity to conduct evidence-based socio-legal research: 'Historically, issues of civil justice have been subordinated to criminal justice in terms of investment, research and media attention (…) In recognition of this need, the Law Foundation of British Columbia provided funding for a pilot project aimed at developing networks for evidence-based social research about systems of justice and related legal issues. Ultimately this project is intended to support our Research in Action program by developing a national network of socio-legal researchers. Although the Forum mandate concerns civil justice, we are aware that the need to increase socio-legal research capacity extends also to administrative and criminal justice areas. We therefore welcome researchers focusing on any of these legal areas to participate in the socio-legal network events and database'."
• Canadian Judicial Council Report on Improving Access to Justice (June 27, 2008): "The Canadian Judicial Council has released a new report entitled Access to Justice: Report on Selected Reform Initiatives in Canada (…) This report (…) is based on records developed at its request for the new Inventory of Reforms created by the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice … The report identifies 60 reforms in the five noted areas covered, ranging from pilot projects to changes that have already become permanent."
• Recent Developments in Civil Justice Reform (February 2, 2010): "The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, a national organization based at the University of Alberta, has highlighted some recent justice reform projects from California, Manitoba, Ontario, Alberta and England and Wales."
• How Much Does It Cost to Access Justice in Canada? (February 14, 2010): "The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, based at the University of Alberta, has published What does it cost to access justice in Canada? How much is "too much"? And how do we know? — Literature Review …"

I confess: I love law reform commission reports. I find they are wonderful sources for legal research. Many of the reports provide historical background on an issue and you can often find comparative information about how other jurisdictions have responded.

In the past few days, by pure coincidence, I have come across a wealth of new reports by law commissions in New Zealand, Ireland and Australia:

• New Zealand Law Reform Commission Introductory Issues Paper on Law of Trusts : this is primarily a background paper. It traces the development of the trust from its origins in medieval England through to the present day uses of the trust both in New Zealand and internationally. It also examines the key features of the trust with a view to finding a working definition that might possibly serve as a statutory definition for a new Trustee Act or possibly a Trusts Act and takes a look at comparable overseas legislation.
• Law Reform Commission of Ireland Report on Alternative Dispute Resolution: The Report notes that mediation and conciliation are increasingly being used to try to reach mutually acceptable settlements of civil and commercial cases. These include: big commercial and small consumer claims, employment disputes, family breakdown, medical claims and property disputes. In 2006, The Dubliners reached a mediated settlement with their record label EMI over royalty payments. Earlier this year, when U2’s bass guitarist Adam Clayton obtained a temporary High Court injunction against his former personal assistant, it was stated that her employment contract had a mediation clause, which could allow her to postpone or stop ('stay') any court proceedings. The report recommends that the key principles of mediation and conciliation should be set out, including: they are voluntary processes; the parties control them; confidentiality of the processes is required; and their quality must be assured by clearly stated standards. The report also calls on the Government to make an 'ADR pledge,' under which Government Departments and State bodies would be required to consider and attempt mediation or conciliation in appropriate cases before initiating court proceedings
• Law Reform Commission of Ireland Report on the Consolidation and Reform of the Courts Acts: The Commission’s Report recommends that the existing Courts Acts should be consolidated into a single Courts (Consolidation and Reform) Act. The Courts Acts comprise 240 Acts in all, 146 of which precede the foundation of the State in 1922. Over 100 of these are from the 19th Century, and some even date back to the 13th Century, such as the Sheriffs Act 1215 (wow!). The Commission recommends that 192 of the 240 Acts should be repealed entirely and replaced by the draft Courts (Consolidation and Reform) Bill which the Commission is publishing with the Report. The draft Bill also implements a number of significant reforms which the Commission recommends in the Report, and these are intended to enhance the effectiveness of the administration of justice in the courts. As well as replacing almost 200 Courts Acts with a single Act and making wide-ranging reforms, the draft Courts (Consolidation and Reform) Bill would reduce down to 359 sections over 1,500 sections from the existing Courts Acts. This would make the law in this vital area for Irish society accessible, modern and with a focus on enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the court system.
• Australian Law Reform Commission Consultation Paper on Discovery: [from the press release] "The 2009 Access to Justice Taskforce report—established by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, which recommended that the ALRC conduct this Inquiry—noted that the high and disproportionate cost of discovery can impose a barrier to justice in court based dispute resolution. While the truth-seeking purposes of discovery may promote fairness in litigation, the commercial realities of contemporary discovery practice and procedure may threaten the very same fairness and justice sought to be achieved. ALRC President Professor Rosalind Croucher said 'A particular feature of contemporary litigation is the massive exponential growth and storage of documents in the electronic age. Discovery can be an important process in litigation to avoid trial by ambush, but the vast amount of electronically-stored information which litigants might be required to disclose can lead to trial by avalanche. The impact of information and communication technologies can also exacerbate the inherent tension between the party requesting discovery—seeking to ascertain facts material to the case; and the party giving discovery—bearing the burden of retrieving, reviewing and disclosing documents in response to discovery requests. The task in this Inquiry is to develop proposals and ultimately, recommendations for reform that balances these tensions fairly and practically'."
• Australian Law Reform Commission Final Report on Family Violence: An interesting document that examines how another federal system handles the question The main thrust is the need to end legislative and policy fragmentation of the issue because of overlapping Commonwealth, state and territorial jurisdiction. The report calls for the adoption of a common interpretative framework in relation to family violence across state and territory family violence legislation, the Family Law Act and the criminal law. This involves: establishing a shared understanding of what constitutes family violence across these legislative schemes; and of the nature, features and dynamics of family violence.