The Supreme Court has taken some weird stances lately on accessibility of their jurisprudence — ignoring decisions from the Commissioner of Official Languages is not the only one. Another weird one is their stance that the Reproduction of Federal Law Order doesn’t apply to the paragraph numbers in their judgements. ([Not a joke.](https://www.scc-csc.ca/terms-avis/notice-enonce-eng.aspx))
Whynutcoconot on
The federal government treating french-canadians as second class citizen. Nothing new here
Makes you wonder why sovereignism is still a thing in Quebec…
Justin_123456 on
I get that this is a desirable thing, but it’s also an enormous logistical and administrative challenge.
The translation has to be done by people with legal training to ensure a mostly consistent meaning, which means hiring dozens of new bilingual lawyers and paralegals.
Even so there’s a real risk that a decision written originally monolingual-ly will have its meaning changed in translation, based on the translator’s interpretations, without the original Justices there to consult about their intent.
Then there is just the volume of work, which must amount to hundreds of thousands of pages of text.
StephenFeltmate on
This is an important issue and should not be taken lightly. In the recent UR Pride Centre vs Government of Saskatchewan appeal hearing, the issue of the meaning of a particular French word in the Quebec Hak ruling became an important item in the case. Language matters.
I think this goes to the integrity of our legal system. French speakers in Canada must have access to pre-1970 decisions if they are relevant to the operation of the law (and they are). Yes, it will require significant resources but it is not like we do not have these resources available. Canada is a very new nation and we are continually defining the character and values of our society. We should take this seriously if we value equality.
4 Comments
The Supreme Court has taken some weird stances lately on accessibility of their jurisprudence — ignoring decisions from the Commissioner of Official Languages is not the only one. Another weird one is their stance that the Reproduction of Federal Law Order doesn’t apply to the paragraph numbers in their judgements. ([Not a joke.](https://www.scc-csc.ca/terms-avis/notice-enonce-eng.aspx))
The federal government treating french-canadians as second class citizen. Nothing new here
>Until very recently, the OLA was not interpreted as requiring the Supreme Court to translate its old decisions. However, in 2021, in response to a [complaint](https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1834453/langues-officielles-traduction-cour-supreme-plainte-commissaire) filed by lawyer Marie-Andrée Denis-Boileau, the Commissioner of Official Languages, Raymond Théberge, held that the Court was in breach of the OLA by publishing unilingual decisions on its website, on the grounds that they constitute communications with the public by a federal institution.
Makes you wonder why sovereignism is still a thing in Quebec…
I get that this is a desirable thing, but it’s also an enormous logistical and administrative challenge.
The translation has to be done by people with legal training to ensure a mostly consistent meaning, which means hiring dozens of new bilingual lawyers and paralegals.
Even so there’s a real risk that a decision written originally monolingual-ly will have its meaning changed in translation, based on the translator’s interpretations, without the original Justices there to consult about their intent.
Then there is just the volume of work, which must amount to hundreds of thousands of pages of text.
This is an important issue and should not be taken lightly. In the recent UR Pride Centre vs Government of Saskatchewan appeal hearing, the issue of the meaning of a particular French word in the Quebec Hak ruling became an important item in the case. Language matters.
I think this goes to the integrity of our legal system. French speakers in Canada must have access to pre-1970 decisions if they are relevant to the operation of the law (and they are). Yes, it will require significant resources but it is not like we do not have these resources available. Canada is a very new nation and we are continually defining the character and values of our society. We should take this seriously if we value equality.