Supreme Court of Canada: Stats for 1999-2009 and Best Decisions of 2009

Two Supreme Court stories from me this week:

1) The Supreme Court of Canada has released a special edition of its Bulletin of Proceedings that provides a statistical overview of its activities for the period 1999-2009.

It provides information on leave applications submitted, appeals heard, judgments, and time lapses (time between the filing of a complete application for leave to appeal and the Court’s decision on whether leave should be granted; time between decision to grant leave and the hearing; time between the hearing of an appeal and the judgment).

2)The Court, the Osgoode Hall Law School blog that tracks the Supreme Court of Canada’s activities, recently announced the winners of the First Annual Ozzy Awards (all of this is totally unofficial of course):

“A while back, we promised we would compile a list of our top judgments from 2009 in a number of categories. And so, at the risk of diverting the nation’s attention from our top athletes at the Olympics, we present to you the First Annual Ozzy Awards (named in recognition both of our school and the fact that we’re pretty much ripping off the Oscars).”

“Due to the economy, we decided to forego the red-carpet awards gala we had planned in Roy Thomson Hall with the leading luminaries of the Canadian legal profession in attendance in their finest evening wear (maybe next year).”

There are categories for:

• Criminal Judgment of the Year
• Civil Judgment of the Year
• Charter Judgment of the Year
• Concurring Opinion of the Year
• Dissenting Opinion of the Year
• Most Disappointing Refusal of Leave
• Judge of the Year
• Judgment of the Year