This Week At The SCC (26/07/2013)

The Supreme Court of Canada released one decision this week of interest to Canadian businesses and professions.

In Conseil scolaire francophone de la Colombie‑Britannique v. British Columbia, 2013 SCC 42, Wagner J. for the majority held that documents submitted to the British Columbia courts for use in civil proceedings (in this case, affidavit exhibits) must either be in English, or accompanied by an English translation. Wagner J. based his judgment not only upon Rule 22-3 of the B.C. Supreme Court Civil Rules (which provides that "every document prepared for use in the court must be in the English language"), but also upon a 1731 English statute that he found was received into British Columbia law under the s. 2 of the B.C. Law and Equity Act. The 1731 statute requires that all "proceedings" - including therefore the taking and admission of evidence - be in English. Wagner J. held that this conclusion was not inconsistent with Charter values, since the Charter does not require any province other than New Brunswick to provide for court proceedings in both official languages.

In a dissent, Karakatsanis J. would have found that the B.C. courts possessed inherent jurisdiction to permit the admission of French language docouments where this would ensure the administration of justice according to law in a regular, orderly and effective manner.

The most interesting aspect of the majority's decision was Wagner J.'s discussion of the doctrine of reception. Section 2 of the Law and Equity Act, in common with the reception statutes of some other provinces (e.g., Manitoba and Saskatchewan), provides that the laws of England in existence on the reception date (in B.C., November 19, 1858) are only in force in British Columbia...