Court of Appeal Rules Update Project

Written arguments and factums

• In various places, the Rules refer to “written submissions”, which has been defined to include factums, written arguments, briefs of law and memoranda of arguments (R 2)
• The form and content of factums will remain largely the same, with the exception that the standard of review is to be identified for each issue, rather than in a general section of the factum (R 26(1)).
• The form and filing requirements for written submissions of non-lawyers will be the same as for factums (R 27, R 28 and R 29).

Appeal Books

• Appeal books will still be required for all appeals unless otherwise ordered (R 21(1)). However, the appellant will not need to secure the consent of the respondent to the contents of the appeal book. Instead, a respondent who considers an appeal book to be incomplete may file a supplemental appeal book (R 21(2)). A respondent who considers an appeal book to contain unnecessary or excessive materials may address that issue in their submissions on costs (R 21(4)).
• Parties will be required to file appeal books and supplemental appeal books as one electronic volume (R 24(3)), rendering it easier to cross-reference the appeal record in written submissions.
• Parties will be required to file transcripts of oral evidence separately from the appeal book (R 22(1)), with the appeal book including only an index of witnesses (R 23(a)(ii)). This, also, will render it easier to cross-reference the transcript in written submissions.

(In the future, once the Court of King’s Bench has completed its roll-out of the JStar electronic record, the Court will consider removing the requirement for an appeal book.)

Elimination of expedited appeals

• With the elimination of agreements as to contents of appeal books, the category of expedited appeals will no longer exist.

Authorities

• The Rules will no longer contemplate books of authorities. Instead, if a party seeks to rely on an authority that is not electronically available from a publicly available source and cannot be hyperlinked, they may append a copy of it to their written submissions (R 30(1)).

Inactive appeals

• The proposed Rules contain a new Part 13 that is titled Inactive Appeals and Abandonment. Part 13 will replace the concept of “show cause” hearings with a regime under which appeals must be prosecuted with reasonable dispatch or they will be deemed to be abandoned without further order of the Court (R 43 to R 47).
• Appeals where an appellant does not file their appeal book and written submissions within the time requirements under the Rules or where the appeal has not been scheduled for hearing within one year of the filing of the notice of appeal will be automatically placed on an inactive appeals list (R 44(1)).
• The appellant may apply to a judge in chambers for leave to proceed with an inactive appeal (R 44(2)).
• An appeal shall be deemed to have been dismissed as abandoned without further order if it has remained on the inactive appeals list for 180 days (R 45(1)).
• An appeal that has been deemed to have been dismissed as abandoned may not be reinstated (R 45(2)).

Chambers practices (applications to a judge)

• The Court contemplates a wholesale revision of the rules around chambers hearings and practices (see Part 15).
• Application hearings will be presumptively virtual (R 51(3)) and presumptively 30 minutes in duration or 60 minutes for leave applications (R 51(3)).
• A judge will be available to hear in-person civil chambers hearings in Regina and Saskatoon on one day per month in each city, if requested and approved by the judge (R 51(4) and R 51(5)).
• There will be separate hearing days for criminal (2^nd and 4^th Tuesdays) and civil (2^nd and 4^th Wednesdays) chambers application hearings (R 51(3)).
• Filing requirements will change such that applications must be accompanied by all supporting documents (R 52(1)) and be served 14 days in advance of the return date (R 52(2)(d) and R 53(3)). Respondents will be required to serve their material 7 days before the return date (R 52(5)(b)).
• Written submissions in an application will be limited to a maximum of 20 pages (R 52(2)(d)).
• An application for leave to appeal will be deemed to have been dismissed as abandoned unless it is scheduled for hearing within 6 months of its filing (R 53(3)), and the applicant will have 3 months to apply to have it restored (R 54).