OTTAWA – The registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada says from now on only judgments prepared in both English and French will appear on the court’s website.
The statement Friday from the office of the registrar is the latest development in a controversy over access to the top court’s historical decisions in both official languages.
Between 1877 and 1970, the court issued approximately 6,000 decisions that were not translated. It says some were in French, some in English, and others in both languages.
Judgments began appearing in both English and French following passage of the Official Languages Act.
Since 2019, the registrar had made every judgment in the court’s history available via its website.
Pre-1970 judgments have been removed from the Supreme Court site, and the registrar said Friday that anyone wishing to access them may search other open, online databases.
In addition, on the occasion of the court’s 150th anniversary next year, the office of the registrar will begin translating the court’s “most historically or jurisprudentially significant pre-1970 decisions,” the statement said.
“They will then be available in both French and English on the Court’s website. These translations will however not be official, given that they cannot be approved by the judges who decided the cases, who are all deceased.”
Early this month, the office of the registrar was served with a legal notice by a Quebec civil rights group challenging the court’s refusal to translate its historic decisions.
Droits collectifs Québec filed the application in Federal Court in Montreal.
The rights group initially lodged a complaint with the official languages commissioner. In response, the Supreme Court argued that the Official Languages Act doesn’t apply retroactively.
In September, commissioner Raymond Théberge ruled that while the law doesn’t apply retroactively, any decisions published on the court’s website must be available in both official languages. The failure to translate the judgments amounted to an offence under the act, he said, giving the high court 18 months to correct the situation.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner told reporters in June that the decisions before 1970 are primarily of historical interest, arguing they are “legal cultural heritage made obsolete by the evolution of Quebec and Canadian law.”
The court lacks the resources to carry out such an operation, he said, adding it would take a decade and cost upwards of $20 million.
In the statement Friday, the office of the registrar said it “continues to use public funds responsibly while ensuring public access to the Court and its work.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
— With files from Sidhartha Banerjee
