Action Committee Releases 2024 Justice Development Goals Report

July 7, 2025July 7, 2025ajrn1 Leave a comment

The national Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters’ (Action Committee) 2024 Justice Development Goals report is now available. The report highlights the evolution of the Action Committee and a decade of progress on access to justice across Canada.

For the 2024 Justice Development Goals report, 86 organizations reported on 227 projects advancing access to justice. The report provides details on work carried out in 2024 under each of the 9 justice development goals. Additional information is provided on actions taken on Reconciliation in 2024. The 9 justice development goals are:

JDG 1: Address everyday legal problems
JDG 2: Meet legal needs
JDG 3: Make courts work better
JDG 4: Improve family justice
JDG 5: Work together
JDG 6: Build capability
JDG 7: Innovate
JDG 8: Analyse and learn
JDG 9: Improve funding strategies

Justice Development Goals – A Decade of Progress: Trends Report 2024 is available in English here: https://ajrn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/928d9-jdgreport2024.pdf. The report is available in French here: https://ajrn.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/b9eba-odjreport2024.pdf.

Canadian Journal of Law and Society Publishes Special Issue on People-Centred Justice

April 29, 2025April 29, 2025ajrn1 Leave a comment

A new open access special issue on people-centred justice has been published by the Canadian Journal of Law and Society. The issue covers almost a dozen topics including:

People-Centred Justice: Reimagining Law, Institutions and Process by Andrew Pilliar and Michelle Lawrence
People-Centered Justice in International Assistance: Rule-of-Law Path Dependencies or New Paths to Justice for All? by Adrian Di Giovanni and Maaike De Langen
Person-Centred Justice and Dispute Resolution: The Potential of Lay Courts by Jérémy Boulanger-Bonnelly
Towards People-Centered Justice: The Conflict Resolution Routes of People Facing Legal Problems by Megan Capp and Yvon Dandurand
Using Social Media as a Tool to Inform Person-Centred Justice by Matthew Dylag
Court Form Accessibility: Adopting, Designing and Evaluating Online Guided Pathways by Amy Salyzyn, Jacquelyn Burkell, Esti Azizi and David Westcott
Welfarism and People-Centred Justice by Noel Semple

The special issue is available online here: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-law-and-society-la-revue-canadienne-droit-et-societe/issue/1A0FBAF126BB8296AC0466ACA65CB67C.

Ontario’s Court of Appeal and Pro Bono Ontario Announce Amicus Program for Self-Reps

April 16, 2025April 16, 2025ajrn1 Leave a comment

The Court of Appeal of Ontario and Pro Bono Ontario have announced that Pro Bono Ontario’s Amicus program will once again be running at the Court of Appeal.

As part of the re-launched Amicus program, lawyers volunteering with Pro Bono Ontario “will act as duty counsel and appear as amicus curiae, or ‘friends of the court’, on a pro bono (free) basis”. This service will be available to self-represented litigants at Ontario’s Court of Appeal on Wednesdays.

To read the announcement on the Court of Appeal website, visit: https://www.ontariocourts.ca/coa/pro-bono/.

Ontario Law Society Seeking Feedback on Paralegal Service Expansion

March 3, 2025March 1, 2025ajrn1 Leave a comment

A recent report by the Law Society of Ontario’s Paralegal Standing Committee outlines proposed changes aimed at increasing access to justice options for appeals and judicial review.

The main change involves expanding the paralegal scope of activities to include certain appeals and judicial reviews before the Divisional Court. According to the report, if the Law Society were to adopt a change to the paralegal scope of activities, it would also need to create a training program on the expanded duties, which would be required for paralegals before they could represent clients before the Divisional Court.

The Law Society is seeking feedback on the proposed expansion of scope of activities, including what the scope of activities should include, as well other comments on the proposal. The Law Society of Ontario’s Increasing Access to Justice Options for Appeals and Judicial Reviews: Consultation Report, authored by The Paralegal Standing Committee of the Law Society of Ontario is available in English here: https://lawsocietyontario-dwd0dscmayfwh7bj.a01.azurefd.net/media/lso/media/about/convocation/2025/convocation-february-2025-paralegal-standing-committee-report.pdf.

Augmenter les options d’accès à la justice pour les appels et les révisions judiciaires : Rapport de consultation est disponible en français ici : https://lawsocietyontario-dwd0dscmayfwh7bj.a01.azurefd.net/media/lso/media/about/convocation/2025/convocation-february-2025-paralegal-standing-committee-report-fr.pdf.

Feedback will be gathered until 30 May 2025. To access the consultation form, or for more information in English, please visit the Law Society of Ontario website here: https://lso.ca/about-lso/initiatives/increasing-access-to-justice-options-for-appeals-a. For the French form, please visit: https://lso.ca/a-propos-du-barreau/initiatives/augmenter-les-options-d%E2%80%99acces-a-la-justice-pour-les-appels-et-les-revisions-judiciaires.

New Report Calls for Urgent Reforms at Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board

November 25, 2024November 25, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

A recently published report by the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) calls for urgent changes to address significant delays and inefficiencies at Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). The report notes that, while Ontario is taking steps to improve operations at the LTB, action is urgently needed to address backlogs and rebuild confidence in Toronto’s rental market.

According to an Ombudsman Ontario investigation, there are more than 53,000 unresolved cases at the LTB. The following are among the ten recommendations the TRREB outlines in the report to improve efficiency and accessibility at the LTB:

Reinstate in-person hearings
Create a special backlog reduction team focused on addressing older and urgent cases
Streamline the appointments process to ensure that qualified, experienced adjudicators remain in their positions
Strengthen technological infrastructure
Enforce stricter timelines
Adopt better screening processes to prevent unfair or unnecessary termination of applications

The news release for the TRREB’s “Breaking the Backlog: Restoring Fairness and Justice to Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board” report is available here: https://trreb.ca/trreb-releases-report-breaking-the-backlog-restoring-fairness-and-justice-to-ontarios-landlord-and-tenant-board/. The report is available in full here: https://trreb.ca/hlfiles/pdf/TRREB-Breaking_the_Backlog.pdf.

Call for Proposals Launched for 2025 People-Centred Justice Workshop

September 18, 2024September 18, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

The 3^rd annual People-Centred Justice Workshop will take place from May 30-31, 2025 in Vancouver, BC, on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Organized by the BC Access to Justice Centre for Excellence at the University of Victoria, in collaboration with University of British Columbia’s Peter A. Allard School of Law and Thompson Rivers University’s Faculty of Law, and building on the success of the 2023 and 2024 PCJ workshops, this event aims to provide a venue to discuss Canadian A2J initiatives. The theme for the 2025 Workshop is “Innovation in People-Centred Justice.” The workshop will be conducted in a hybrid format, with AI-assisted translation services available for participants joining remotely or in person.

The organizing committee welcomes proposals on research, projects, or papers addressing any form of innovation in this field, whether through technology, procedural reform, or alternative approaches to people-centred justice. If you would like to participate, please submit your information and a brief proposal outline in this form by October 7, 2024. No abstract or complete work is required now, and subsequent deadlines will be communicated with participants. Participants will not be strictly held to the outline they provide. The October 7 deadline will allow organizers to better plan the workshop program and apply for funding to support the event.

The 2025 People-Centred Justice Workshop will immediately follow the 2025 Conference of the Federation of Law Reform Agencies of Canada (FOLRAC), which will also be held in Vancouver. Some participants may wish to attend both events.

Law Commission of Ontario Provides Comments on Bill to Strengthen Cyber Security and Build Trust in Public Sector

June 26, 2024June 26, 2024ajrn1 Leave a comment

Ontario’s Law Commission has released a paper discussing its submission to the Government of Ontario’s request for comments on Bill 194, Strengthening Cyber Security and Building Trust in the Public Sector Act, 2024. The submission highlights the potential for artificial intelligence systems operating at the provincial level to impact significant issues and interests in Ontarians’ lives, including their personal liberty, education, employment, health care, housing, access to economic opportunities, and income security.

The submission proposes the implementation of benchmarks to support the regulation of public sector AI and the addition of provisions “to ensure public sector AI use is beneficial, lawful, and accountable.” The paper identifies10 recommendations, including:

The need for Bill 194 to address the most significant AI risks, including to AI systems used by courts, and tribunals and other parts of the justice system;
The inclusion of a provincially mandated impact assessment that addresses privacy, human rights, and procedural fairness and provides assurances about how an AI system will comply with other legal obligations and policies;
The creation of a transparent and accountable governance framework for public sector AI systems;
Prioritization of the development of the most important AI regulations and policies, and meaningful public input and participation in the development of these regulations/policies.

Bill 194: Strengthening Cyber Security and Building Trust in the Public Sector Act – Law Commission of Ontario Submission is available online here: https://www.lco-cdo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/LCO-Submission-to-Government-of-Ontario-Bill-194-Consultations-June-2024.pdf.