Wednesday: What’s Hot on CanLII

Each Wednesday we tell you which three English-language cases and which French-language case have been the most viewed on CanLII and we give you a small sense of what the cases are about.

For this last week:

1. Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571
   

   [1] This Court has developed a new awareness and understanding of a category of vexatious litigant. As we shall see, while there is often a lack of homogeneity, and some individuals or groups have no name or special identity, they (by their own admission or by descriptions given by others) often fall into the following descriptions: Detaxers; Freemen or Freemen-on-the-Land; Sovereign Men or Sovereign Citizens; Church of the Ecumenical Redemption International (CERI); Moorish Law; and other labels – there is no closed list. In the absence of a better moniker, I have collectively labelled them as Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument litigants [“OPCA litigants”], to functionally define them collectively for what they literally are. These persons employ a collection of techniques and arguments promoted and sold by ‘gurus’ (as hereafter defined) to disrupt court operations and to attempt to frustrate the legal rights of governments, corporations, and individuals. . . .

2. Richards v Richards 2013 ABQB 484
   

   [1] Linda and Timothy Richards were married on October 8, 1988. After 21 years of marriage, the Richards separated on August 29, 2009. Linda Richards (the “Plaintiff”) filed a Statement of Claim for Divorce and Division of Matrimonial Property on September 20, 2010. The Statement of Defence was filed by Timothy Richards (the “Defendant”) in respect of this matter on November 17, 2011 and a Counterclaim for Divorce and Division of Matrimonial Property was filed by him on November 17, 2011. The parties are not yet divorced. . . .

3. R. v. Arsenault 2013 ONSC 5675
   

   [1] On July 22, 2013, more than 11 years from the date the charges were first laid, Mr. Arsenault was scheduled to stand trial on allegations that include attempted murder. He submits that his right to trial within a reasonable time under s. 11(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been breached and asks the court to stay the prosecution. The Crown contends that 11 years is not an unreasonable length of time to get to trial and that the accused has not been significantly prejudiced by it. It argues that this case should join “the long line of other cases where very lengthy total delays, before reaching trial, have not resulted in any violation of s. 11(b) of the Charter”, to which Code J. recently added in R. v. Faulkner, [2013] ONSC 2373 (at para. 130). . . .

The most-consulted French-language decision was Association des juges administratifs de la Commission des lésions professionnelles c. Québec (Procureur général) 2013 QCCA 1690

[9] Les appelants intentent en 2009 une action visant à faire constater par la Cour supérieure que « les conditions actuelles d’exercice de la charge d’adjudication dévolue aux commissaires de la CLP ne permettent pas de rencontrer les garanties suffisantes d’indépendance et d’impartialité au sens de l’article 23 de la Charte » et, en conséquence, à faire déclarer nulles et inopérantes certaines des dispositions législatives et réglementaires fixant ces conditions. Ils réclament notamment que soit déclaré nul et inopérant le Décret 370-2010 du 26 avril 2010, décret relatif à la rémunération, qui contreviendrait non seulement à l’article 23 de la Charte québécoise mais aussi à l’article 404 de la Loi sur les accidents du travail et les maladies professionnelles. Ils réclament enfin que, pour assurer l’indépendance nécessaire à l’exercice de leurs fonctions, leur rémunération soit désormais fixée grâce à un mécanisme qui s’apparenterait à celui dont bénéficient les juges des cours de justice. . . .