BC Court of Appeal to adopt new rules simplifying civil appeals process

The British Columbia Ministry of Attorney General has announced that the BC Court of Appeal will adopt new rules to simplify the civil appeals process for lawyers and self-represented litigants.

According to the ministry, the new rules consist of changes to the court of appeal rules to clarify existing procedures, create efficiencies, and improve access to justice for litigants in the court of appeal. The ministry added that it based these changes on feedback from public consultations conducted between July and August 2021.

In particular, the new rules clarify the conditions for bringing applications for leave to appeal and update requirements for filing and serving documents relating to an appeal. They also outline the process for referring an appeal to case management and the types of orders that a judge can make during a case management hearing.

The new rules also simplify ordinary costs to two scales and adjust the tariff of costs to align with the Supreme Court of British Columbia’s tariffs.

In addition, the new rules modify several civil appeals forms, such as notice of appeal, notice of cross appeal, notice of application, and notice of withdrawal of lawyer, to include readable instructions with plain language and consider future integration of electronic filing options.

The ministry confirmed that the new rules would take effect on July 18.