Supreme Court of Canada Factums Soon Online?

As reported last week on slaw.ca, the Supreme Court of Canada is "planning to make factums available online next year year, at least in some measure."

The Osgoode Hall Law School blog The Court has added more detail to the issue in today's post entitled Coming soon to the Web: SCC factums:

"According to proponents of initiatives like these, on-line access to factums has several advantages. It’s in keeping with the open-court principle, and the principle of access to justice. It would also provide academics and practitioners alike with a valuable research tool. Further, some have argued that the quality of factums may actually improve if lawyers have access to their peers’ work, and if they know that those same peers will have access to their work".

"Proponents have also responded to many of the concerns raised by those on the other side of the debate. For starters, they note that public access to factums is hardly new; many SCC litigants already publish their factums on-line, and will happily share them with journalists. A new database, according to this line of argument, will simply serve to make access easier. Moreover, to the extent that there are legitimate concerns about the reliability of a factum’s contents, or the privacy of parties to litigation, fans of the on-line database idea argue that these concerns can be easily addressed".