Ontario Court Dates Now Available Online, Much More Needed
In an earlier post, I described how Ontario’s courts drastically need to be modernized.
A new initiative went online last week at www.ontariocourtdates.ca. Members of the public can now access the site to obtain daily court lists of the Superior Court of Justice or the Ontario Court of Justice throughout the province. The information is presented in aggregate form.
Although this is a great first step, it is not a significant one. The Toronto Lawyers Association has been providing very similar information for Toronto court lists on its website for many years. All that this new information does is to give people advance notice of the courthouse and courtroom number a hearing will be in (as opposed to needing to visit the courthouse itself on the day of the hearing to find out the courtroom location).
Far more is needed to facilitate electronic serving and filing of court documents and for obtaining greater access to individual court dockets. Here’s hoping the new website is only the start of better things to come.
The technologization of the Courts and the profession is both slow and overdue. Perhaps Justice Brown’s recent decision in Bank of Montreal v Faibish will be the fillip that is needed to make progress. Let’s hope so.