Law via the Internet 2009 Conference Papers

Papers from the recent Law via the Internet conference in Durban, South Africa are gradually being posted on the conference website.

It was the 10th such conference.

The Law via the Internet conference is organized by the Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) from different countries and continents that together form the Free Access to Law Movement.

The goal of the LIIs is to maximize free access to public legal information such as legislation and case law from as many countries and international institutions as possible.

CanLII, the Canadian Legal Information Institute, is a prominent member of the movement.

Do We Really Need Law Reform Commissions?

David Weisbrot is stepping down as president of the Australian Law Reform Commission, a position he has held for 10 years.

He was interviewed earlier this week on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

"Law Reform Commissions -- do we really need them? If governments want to change the law, why can't they work out what they want by themselves? Do law reform commissions provide governments with camouflage, allowing them to further their political agendas with a veneer of impartiality?"

"After 10 years at the helm of the Australian Law Reform Commission David Weisbrot is stepping down. He says law reform commissions do indeed provide objective, arms length advice, and all sorts of individuals and businesses are happy to provide information that they would never share with government."

RCMP Complaints Commissioner Report on Tasering Death of Polish Immigrant

Paul Kennedy, chairman of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, yesterday released his long awaited report into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport on October 14, 2007.

On that day, four RCMP officers responded to calls about erratic conduct by Dziekanski, who had arrived to begin a new life with his mother already living in British Columbia.

Mr. Dziekanski was described as exhausted and confused after being lost in the terminal for hours. When he brandished a stapler at the officers, he was shot with a Taser stun gun. He died of cardiac arrest.

In his summary, Kennedy writes:

"I do not accept the version of events as presented by the four responding RCMP members. The statements provided by the members are sparse in terms of detail of the events and the thought processes of the members as events unfolded. When tracked against the witness video, the recollections of the members fall short of a credible statement of the events as they actually unfolded. The fact that the members met together prior to providing statements causes me to further question their versions of events."

"An issue inextricably linked to the incident is the use of a conducted energy weapon (CEW), also known as a TASER®, by an RCMP member during the arrest of Mr. Dziekanski. The CEW is a prohibited firearm pursuant to the regulations under the Criminal Code of Canada.1 Debate pertaining to the overall appropriateness of the use of CEWs by police had been ongoing for some time prior to the YVR incident (and has been previously commented on by the Commission as indicated below), but this particular use of a CEW focused considerable attention and scrutiny on appropriate CEW usage and the nature of the CEW as a weapon."

The report makes numerous recommendations. Among others, Kennedy calls on the Mounties to review their taser quality-assessment program and improve training in awareness of the potentially dangerous nature of tasers. As well, the RCMP should do more to teach officers techniques to communicate with people who cannot meaningfully communicate with them. Dziekanski could not speak English.

Other Library Boy posts on the Taser weapon include:

• Canada Orders Review of Use of Tasers After Video of Polish Immigrant's Death Released (November 15, 2007): "Yesterday's Globe and Mail recounts 'Tasered man's last moments' and provides links to the 10-minute amateur video of Dziekanski being shot with the Taser, convulsing and screaming in pain, being subdued by police and then going silent and no longer moving."
• RCMP Told To Curb Taser Use (December 15, 2007): "Earlier this week, Paul Kennedy, head of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, released an interim report outlining recommendations for the government on the Mounties' use of the Taser stun guns. The Commission is an independent civilian agency. Kennedy's report does not call for a moratorium on the weapon. However, it concludes that the federal police force needs to limit its use, increase training for officers and conduct more research on its effects."
• Canadian Parliamentary Committee Report on Taser Stun Guns (July 29, 2008): "To prevent confidence in the RCMP from eroding further, the Committee [House of Commons Standing Public Safety and National Security] considers that the RCMP must react immediately by revising its policy on CEWs to stipulate that use of such weapons can be justified only in situations where a subject is displaying assaultive behaviour or represents a threat of death or grievous bodily harm. This immediate restriction is necessary given the persisting uncertainty about the effects of CEW technology on the health and safety of persons subjected to it, and the scarcity of independent, peer-reviewed research in this regard. The Committee also urges the RCMP to implement preventive methods designed to diminish the use of Taser guns during police interventions, in particular by enhancing accountability at the RCMP and improving officer training on intervention involving persons suffering from various problems, including bipolar disorder, autism and autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and drug addiction."
• RCMP Report on Taser Usage (September 12, 2008): "The Toronto Star has obtained a study on the use of Taser stun guns that was commissioned by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Commissioner.The June 2008 study on "conducted energy weapons" (CEWs) was published by the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, an independent civilian agency. The newspaper requested a copy under the Access to Information Act... The report finds that the RCMP relied too much on the advice of the weapon's American manufacturer and did not consult enough with medical professionals."

Academic Law Library Statistics 2007-2008

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has just released a report on Academic Law Library Statistics 2007-2008.

Among the highlights (all dollars are in US currency):

• Out of 113 ARL university libraries, 74 responded to this survey
• Law libraries reported median values of 345,935 volumes held and 8,033 gross volumes added. Also, these libraries employed the full-time equivalent of 2,129 staff members in the fiscal year 2007–2008
• Responding libraries reported total expenditures of $215,630,657 ... materials expenditures made up the largest portion of the total, with 47% of aggregated
  expenses falling under a materials-related category
• Law libraries reported a total of $20,345,053 on electronic materials, or a median of 22% of their total materials budgets. This includes a total of $17,200,532 on electronic serials

Among the institutions responding were McGill, Université de Montréal, Queen's, Saskatchewan, University of Western Ontario and York.

The ARL website contains surveys from previous years.

Statutory Review of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security recently released its Statutory Review of the Sex Offender Information Registry Act:

"The primary purpose of the review was to determine what changes need to be made to SOIRA and related legislation to ensure that the national registry is best able to fulfill the purpose for which it was enacted, that is, to help police authorities in Canada to investigate sex offences. To that end, the Committee held three sessions during which it gathered evidence from representatives of the departments of Public Safety and Justice, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers, and Jim and Anna Stephenson, the parents of young Christopher, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered at the age of 11 by a sex offender on federal statutory release (...)"

"This report sets out the weaknesses in the national registry that were revealed over the course of these hearings and concludes with the Committee’s observations and
recommendations. In light of the review, the Committee feels that statutory amendments are required to SOIRA and related legislation if the police are to have a more effective investigatory tool. The recommendations are designed specifically to help police departments prevent crimes of a sexual nature, solve them more quickly, and more effectively supervise sex offenders in the community. The national registry that this report proposes is inspired by the provisions of the Ontario sex offender registry, which the police officers who appeared before the Committee consider superior, and eliminates the legislative obstacles brought to its attention that hamper the administration and effective operation of the national registry. It is important to make clear at the outset that, by themselves, the suggested changes cannot ensure the national registry’s effectiveness. That depends on the support and cooperation of the many stakeholders involved in ensuring public safety at the national, provincial/territorial and municipal levels."

The federal Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) came into force in late 2004. It established a national registry containing information on offenders who have been convicted of a sex offence or found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

Statistics Canada on Canadian Incaceration Rates

Statistics Canada today released a report entitled Adult and youth correctional services: Key indicators:

"In 2008/2009, Canada's incarceration rate increased 1% over the previous year, driven largely by the continued increase in the number of adults held in remand in provincial/territorial jails while awaiting trial or sentencing (...)"

"It was the fourth consecutive annual increase in the incarceration rate. The four increases followed a decade of steady declines attributable to a decrease in the number of youth and federal offenders held in custody."

"Canada's incarceration rate has tended to be higher than those in most Western European countries, yet far lower than that of the United States."

UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has begun.

It is possible to find webcasts, news and background documents on the conference website.

You may also want to check out the UN Climate Change Gateway and the Danish government's host country website.

British Parliamentary Publication on Use and Abuse of Official Language

The Public Administration Committee of the British House of Commons recently published a report entitled Bad Language: The Use and Abuse of Official Language that deals with the damage done by unclear, inaccurate and confusing language in official documents:

"The language used in public life is a frequent target for ridicule, whether by parliamentary sketchwriters making fun of ministers' speeches, or in fictional works such as the television series Yes Minister. Yet the language used by government and public bodies is important because it directly affects people's lives. It needs to enable those in government (and those who want to be in government) to explain clearly what the basis for a policy is, or to provide guidance on getting access to the range of public services. Language therefore determines how politicians and public servants relate to the people they are there to serve."

"We launched our short inquiry into official language to highlight the importance of clear and understandable language in government. In order to evaluate how effectively government uses language, we invited the public and Members of Parliament to submit examples of bad and good official language. Many of these are included in this report to illustrate how government uses (and misuses) language. We also held a public hearing to ask questions of the Plain English Campaign, the academic expert Professor David Crystal, and the political sketchwriters and columnists Matthew Parris and Simon Hoggart."

"The aim of our inquiry was not merely to highlight the worst examples of official language (although such examples have been by turns amusing and exasperating), but to explore why the language used by government matters. We examine the damaging effects that bad official language can have, before concluding on a more hopeful note with some suggestions for making official language clearer and more comprehensible, including a proposed remedy for citizens."

Related Library Boy posts that deal with plain language include:

• Plain Language Resources for Law, Business, Government, and Life (August 9, 2005): "Clear language or plain language refers to jargon-free, understandable language. For the past 20 years or more, an international movement has been working to make the language used in law, health information, financial services, commerce and business more accessible. Plain language does NOT mean dumbed down or simplistic vocabulary."
• Move Toward Plain Language in Canadian Court Decisions (November 7, 2005): "Saturday's Globe and Mail contains an article by Richard Blackwell entitled 'Doing the write thing: Judges used to put out decisions that were incomprehensible. Now they are sometimes even eloquent. The writing lessons didn't hurt'... As the article explains, the Supreme Court has been removing Latin words from its rulings and altering the format to make them easier to follow for people reading electronic versions on a website. The clear language push is also being promoted in Canada by such organizations as the National Judicial Institute and the Montreal-based Canadian Institute for the Administration of Justice, where new judges have their writing critiqued by English professors."
• Myths About the Complexity of Legal Language (November 17, 2006): "The Social Science Research Network has published a forthcoming article on Some Myths about Legal Language by Professor Peter Tiersma of the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles (...) Excerpts from the final section of the full-text: (...) 'Thus, the main obstacle to writing the law in plain English is that, unless the law itself is vastly simplified, it will require the use of so many words that there will be nothing plain about it. Most advocates of plain English recognize this problem. Although they continue to agitate for plainer language in legal documents, including statutes, they realize that many parts of the law are too complex to allow them to be fully and comprehensibly explained to ordinary citizens. They therefore advocate that those legal areas in which citizens have particular interest, like criminal law, be officially summarized and explained'."
• George Orwell and Plain Language in Law (June 25, 2007): "Judith D. Fischer, University of Louisville - Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, has an article on the Social Science Research Network entitled Why George Orwell's Ideas About Language Still Matter for Lawyers. The article deals with the use of clear language in legal writing but also analyses the use of deceit in legal and political discourse in the United States ..."

New Canadian Law Blogs

Steven Matthews reports that he has added 18 new Canadian law blogs since September to his Lawblogs.ca list.

[Source: slaw.ca]

United Nations Bibliography on International Trade

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has created a consolidated bibliography of works related to the Commission's work for the period 1968-2009.

It is broken down into different subjects:

• General
• International sale of goods
• International commercial arbitration and conciliation
• International transport
• International payments (including independent guarantees and standby letters of credit)
• Electronic commerce
• Security interests (including receivables financing)
• Procurement
• Insolvency
• International construction contracts
• International countertrade
• Privately financed infrastructure projects
  

UNCITRAL is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly of the United Nations with the general mandate to further the progressive harmonization and unification of the law of international trade.

It deals with the laws applicable to private parties in international transactions. It is not involved with "state-to-state" issues such as anti-dumping, countervailing duties, or import quotas.

TV Ontario Interview with Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, was interviewed earlier this week on The Agenda, a current affairs show on the TVO (TV Ontario) public educational network.

Call for Nominations: Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL / ACBD) has opened the nomination period for the next Annual Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing.

The award was created:

"means of acknowledging the work that is done by publishers to provide the legal profession with high quality materials for use in understanding and researching the law (...) "

"The award may be given for a wide variety of publishing endeavours – a specific book, series, service, or a particularly innovative publishing venture. All formats are eligible, including print, electronic, and audio-visual. The intent is to recognize excellent products and services, whether published in a traditional format or with new technology. English- and French-language publications will be considered."

The deadline for nominations is January 15, 2010.

• Nominations must include the name of the publisher, the title of the nominated work, and an explanation of why the nominated publisher and work are worthy of being granted the award. The explanation should, at a minimum, address how the nominated work is of use to the Canadian legal profession in understanding and researching the law.
• Nominations must be made by a member of CALL or publisher. Publishers may nominate their own work.
• All nominations must include the names of two CALL members who support the nomination.
• Eligible works must have been published in the last two years, or in the case of a series or ongoing work, must have achieved a particular goal within the last two years.

Submissions should be sent to the CALL Executive Member-at-Large who is Chair of the Award Committee:

Susan Jones
Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society
1815 Upper Water Street, 7th Floor
Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 1S7
Fax: (902) 422-1697
Email: sjones [AT] nsbs.org

Supreme Court of Canada: New Library Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection for the period of November 16th to 30th, 2009 is now available on the Court website.

The web page explains: "The Supreme Court of Canada Library does not lend materials from this list, which is provided for information only."

But, once the material goes into the general collection, after about a month, the works do become available for inter-library loan to authorized libraries.

It is possible to subscribe via e-mail to receive the list.