Over 100 years of Supreme Court of Canada judgments now available on CanLII
The Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) is very pleased to announce that through a joint initiative of the Supreme Court of Canada and Lexum Inc., Canadians and legal researchers across the globe can now access on CanLII a nearly complete collection of over 9,000 decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada dating back to 1907. As with all Canadian court and tribunal decisions available on CanLII (over 1M and growing at a rate of over 2,000 per week), these decisions are fully integrated and cross-linked to any subsequent case on CanLII in which they are referenced.
CanLII's Supreme Court of Canada collection previously encompassed approximately 7,400 decisions, including complete coverage between 1948 and the present as well as partial coverage in all prior years dating back to 1876. The addition of a further 1,600 cases ensures CanLII users will have access to all judgments published in the Supreme Court Reports since 1907. Researchers interested in a more comprehensive collection of 1876-1907 cases are encouraged to visit the Supreme Court of Canada website where they will find all British Columbia and Ontario-originated matters as well as many others that were decided by the Court during that time period.
The Supreme Court of Canada, Lexum and the University of Montreal are Canada's pioneers in making law freely available on the internet having collaborated since 1993 to provide free, web-based access to Supreme Court of Canada judgments. Their efforts, along with a 1997 federally-promulgated statutory instrument authorizing royalty and permission-free reproductions of federal law and the judgments of federally constituted courts and tribunals, laid much of the groundwork that made CanLII possible. Indeed, Lexum itself has also served continuously as CanLII's publisher and technology supplier since CanLII was launched by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada as a "project" in August of 2000.
CanLII is extremely grateful to the Court and to Lexum for their efforts over the past two decades in building and making their Supreme Court decisions database a treasured public asset as well as for the present contribution facilitating the integration of these additional 1,600 decisions into CanLII.
About CanLII: The Canadian Legal Information Institute was officially founded in 2001 by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada. Funded by Canada's lawyers and notaries for the benefit of all, CanLII provides free access to legal information. In 2011, CanLII received nearly 7 million site visits and delivered over 81 million page views to users. According to a 2012 survey of Canadian lawyers and notaries, nearly 90% of lawyers have used CanLII within the past year; with 56% reporting that CanLII is the first place they turn to research Canadian case law. Now with over one million documents across over 200 collections, CanLII is closer than ever to achieving the dreams of its founders to become the best place for lawyers and all Canadians to consult Canadian law.