Advocates’ Society task force launched to implement lessons learned during COVID pandemic

The Advocates’ Society has created a Modern Advocacy Task Force, which seeks to advance justice system reforms, which will include the best measures adopted by the courts in their COVID-19 response.

Aside from incorporating the lessons learned due to the COVID-19 public health crisis in its recommendations, the task force will also suggest other measures that aim to promote substantive access to justice and to push for a sustainable and transparent justice system that will boost public confidence.

Guy Pratte, incoming president of The Advocates’ Society, stressed that the experience of the courts in adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to learn and to improve the efficiency and quality of the justice system.

“We must do that while preserving the fundamental right of litigants to have their cases put forward in a meaningful and direct way before courts and other decision-makers,” said Pratte.

The task force comprises members of The Advocates’ Society from across Canada who have experience in different fields of law. In accordance with The Advocates’ Society belief that meaningful reform should be supported by research, analysis, consultation and deliberation, the task force will receive guidance from an advisory group.

This advisory group is composed of numerous prominent members of the judiciary, such as former Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin; past justices of the Supreme Court of Canada, including Ian Binnie, Thomas Cromwell, Marie Deschamps, Clément Gascon, John C. Major and Marshall Rothstein; incumbent and past senior justices of provincial appellate courts, including Eleanore Cronk, Constance Hunt, John Hunter, Kathryn Neilson, Dennis O’Connor, Jamie Saunders and Robert Sharpe. Sheila Block and Gérald Tremblay, eminent Canadian counsel, round up the advisory group.

The task force expects to conduct a virtual symposium and to release its interim report in the fall of 2020 and to deliver its final report by April 2021 at the latest.