New King’s Bench Practice Directives

June 25, 2023 – Filing of Application or Motion for a Publication Ban or Sealing Order – “Counsel must identify in their pre-trial, triage or case conference briefs whether a publication ban, sealing order or in-camera hearing will be sought and how the media will be advised of such an application.”

June 25, 2023 – Cases involving Statutory Interpretation – “In order to ensure that proper consideration is given to both the French and English versions of legislation where a case involves an issue of statutory interpretation, counsel or a self-represented litigant are to address in their related submissions whether there is discrepancy between the English and French versions. If there is discrepancy, this discrepancy is to be addressed in the submissions regarding the proper interpretation of the statutory provision(s) at issue in accordance with the approach outlined in 5185603 Manitoba Ltd et al v Government of Manitoba et al.”

June 25, 2023 – Tracking of Related Files – “In order to ensure that the judge hearing a matter is aware of related proceedings, counsel must provide information as to any related proceedings in their pre-trial, triage or case conference briefs.
When filing a motion or application in a matter where there is a related proceeding, counsel must file a requisition asking that the related file be provided to the judge along with the file in which the motion or application is brought.”

June 25, 2023 – Use of Artificial Intelligence in Court Submissions – “…there are legitimate concerns about the reliability and accuracy of the information generated from the use of artificial intelligence. To address these concerns, when artificial intelligence has been used in the preparation of materials filed with the court, the materials must indicate how artificial intelligence was used.”


All King’s Bench Practice Directives and Notices can be found here.

New from CanLII: AI generated subject classification for Ontario case law

A helpful new feature just launched on CanLII.org. Going forward, Ontario court decisions on CanLII will display artificial intelligence generated classification.

The AI feature uses machine learning technology to automatically generate practice area labels. The labels appear in grey at the bottom of a search result, underneath the italicized subject keywords:

screen shot of CanLII search result that contains the AI generated label "Public Administration"

The feature offers a quick way for users to determine under which practice area a case has been classified. The Ontario AI project is the second jurisdiction to receive this feature, after CanLII launched the feature for Saskatchewan case law last year.

Read more about the new Ontario project here.

Please note: The library will be closing early on Friday, December 13th at 11:00AM for a special event.  Regular library service will resume Monday, December 16th at 8:30AM.