A new Working Group with representatives from the judiciary, the legal profession and the Ministry of the Attorney General will be looking for ways to make fundamental changes to the BC Supreme Court civil process, Attorney General Geoff Plant, QC announced at a September 27, 2004 press conference.

The 10-member Civil Justice Reform Working Group is part of the BC Justice Review Task Force and will be co-chaired by BC Supreme Court Chief Justice Donald Brenner and Deputy Attorney General Allan Seckel, QC. Members include representatives of the Law Society of BC, the BC Branch of the Canadian Bar Association and the Provincial Court of BC.

Supreme Court trials are becoming so expensive, time-consuming and complex that only large corporations, insurance companies and governments can afford to have their disputes resolved there, the attorney general said. "For the great majority of citizens, it’s really no longer possible to make a claim in the Supreme Court of BC."

Chief Justice Brenner agreed saying "Our court is very concerned about the cost … the non-corporate litigant, the non-insurance company litigant faces, when they come to our court."

The Civil Justice Reform Working Group will focus on the interests of BC Supreme Court users and participants.

Those interests have been identified as:

• Accessibility: dispute resolution processes, including trials, that are affordable, understandable and timely.

• Proportionality: procedures that are proportional to the matters in issue.

• Fairness: parties should have equal and adequate opportunities to assert or defend their rights.

• Public confidence: parties should be confident that the civil justice system will meet their needs and is trustworthy and accountable.

• Efficiency: ensuring the civil justice system uses public resources wisely and efficiently.

• Justice: ensuring the truth, to the greatest extent possible, is ascertained and applied to produce a just resolution.

The Civil Justice Reform Working Group joins three other groups already formed under the BC Justice Review Task Force that are working on fundamental changes to the family justice system, a new criminal justice approach to street crime and strategies to manage large criminal cases in BC.