New Follow Instructions for Household Courts in Ontario

Ontario Household Courts are going again to in-person hearings – in lots of instances.  

That is in line with the May 30, 2023 Memorandum from the Chief Justice of the Ontario Superior Courtroom of Justice, addressed to the province’s attorneys and judges.

The Chief Justice advises that efficient June 15, 2023, new and consolidated Practice Directions will come into drive, and can assist rework Household Courtroom proceedings into one thing with extra flexibility than we noticed pre-pandemic. 

The New Directives

The 53-page Household Courtroom Follow Instructions cowl a whole lot of matters of curiosity to litigants, their attorneys, and the judges themselves.  However one of many key directives includes the principles round when a listening to can/have to be held in-person, and when it may be held nearly.  

The Follow Instructions in the end depart that call to the court docket, nevertheless it set “presumptive pointers” that stipulate the default sort of attendance for every sort of continuing.   As only a few examples:

• All trials are held in particular person except all events consent to a digital trial and the court docket approves.
• All pressing motions will probably be heard by videoconference, except the court docket specifies a unique technique on the time of scheduling.  
• Conversely, all settlement conferences, and trial administration conferences with a settlement focus, are held in-person except the court docket approves a unique technique prematurely.

Nonetheless, a Household Courtroom can deviate from these rulings after considering what are known as “over-arching rules” in how the presumptive pointers ought to be utilized.  They bear in mind an assortment of information, akin to: 

• The problems within the continuing; 
• The anticipated size of the listening to; 
• The evidentiary report; 
• The standing of the events (e.g. self-represented or not); and 
• The members’ entry to expertise. 

The Follow Instructions additionally expressly acknowledge the advantages of each in-person and distant hearings, and permit for a hybrid possibility in some eventualities. (There are some said exceptions, akin to Contempt of Courtroom hearings which should at all times happen in particular person).

Curiously, the Follow Instructions additionally enable for regional variations to those basic guidelines dictating how specified proceedings are to be heard. Because the Follow Path explains:

The next pointers set out the Courtroom’s expectations for the default technique of look for all household occasions that will probably be utilized throughout the province.  Nonetheless, the Courtroom additionally acknowledges that some Areas, specifically the Northwest, Northeast and people with circuiting judges, would require higher flexibility in listening to extra instances nearly.

Our Take 

So far as a post-pandemic mannequin goes, we predict these newest pronouncements take a extra reasonable method – not less than as in comparison with the earlier Superior Courtroom edicts that favoured in-person hearings. 

However in our view, they’re nonetheless a missed alternative to modernize the system, and to enhance entry to justice.

We predict that every one Household Courtroom hearings ought to presumptively be held remotely.  That is the very best, best, and most cost-effective route for meting out Household justice within the province – and the previous three years has confirmed that it may well work.  (And naturally litigants preferring to proceed in-person ought to be given each probability to take action). 

What are your ideas on this newest post-pandemic directive from the Courts?