Legal Research Summary PDF

Title Legal Research Summary
Author Garry Balaganthan
Course Foundations Unit
Institution University of Ottawa
Pages 12
File Size 285.1 KB
File Type PDF
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Summary

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Description

1 Legal Research Summary

Table of Contents Cycle 1:.................................................................................................................................2 Secondary Sources.......................................................................................................................2 The Canadian Constitution..........................................................................................................3 The Executive.................................................................................................................................3

Cycle 2:.................................................................................................................................3 Canadian Abridgment Digest.......................................................................................................3

Cycle 3:.................................................................................................................................3 Court Reporters..............................................................................................................................4 Updating a case..............................................................................................................................4 Noting up a case............................................................................................................................4 CanLii Uses:....................................................................................................................................4

Cycle 4...................................................................................................................................4 Supreme Advocacy newsletter....................................................................................................4

Cycle 5...................................................................................................................................4 Westlaw............................................................................................................................................4

Cycle 6...................................................................................................................................5 Quicklaw..........................................................................................................................................5

Cycle 7...................................................................................................................................5 Administrative Boards and Tribunals........................................................................................5

Cycle 8...................................................................................................................................5 Legislation.......................................................................................................................................5 Federal Legislation........................................................................................................................6 Interpretation Section...................................................................................................................6 Consequential amendment and Repeal sections....................................................................6 Schedule section...........................................................................................................................6 Prohibitions section......................................................................................................................6 The federal statute and accompanying regulations are both legally binding....................6 Annual Statutes..............................................................................................................................7 Use of CanLii in Legislative Research.......................................................................................7 Ontario Leglislation.......................................................................................................................7

Cycle 9...................................................................................................................................7 Tracking Statuotry Change..........................................................................................................7 Federal.............................................................................................................................................7 Legal Effect.....................................................................................................................................8 Assent..............................................................................................................................................8 Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers...............................................................8 Statutory Instruments...................................................................................................................8 Canada Gazette..............................................................................................................................8

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2 Provincial.........................................................................................................................................8 Proclamation by Leuitenant Governor.......................................................................................8 Legislative tables...........................................................................................................................8 Ontario Gazette..............................................................................................................................8

Cycle 10................................................................................................................................9 Regulations and Amending Regulations...................................................................................9 Canada Gazette Part 1 – Notices and Proposed Regulations................................................9 Federal Regulations......................................................................................................................9 Provincial Regulations..................................................................................................................9 Filing date is the default coming into force date.....................................................................9 S 23(2) – unless otherwise provided, a regulation is not enforced unless A is informed of it, or its been published on the e-laws website, or when its gazetted, whatever is earliest...........................................................................................................................................10 Interpretive Materials...................................................................................................................10

Cycle 1: -

Ask Preliminaries FILAC Facts: Parties, events, claims, Issue: What legal question needs to be answered to solve this problem?

Start with secondary sources: textbooks then articles, check footnotes, keep a chart of key terms and what you’ve searched for – make sure sources are recent, correct jurisdiction, or if they’re on reserve for courses When you move to primary sources start with legislation

Secondary Sources: CED: Gives you a brief outline of areas of the law – check the index and table of contents, after reading, check the supplement to ensure you have a current statement of the law -- “§ 962” refers to a paragraph, not a page Halsbury’s: Same as CED – check table of contents, look at foot notes, key words in other databases, take note of repeated sources Irwin Law’s E-library services – Online database Brian Dickson Law Library  Law Databases  Other Law Guides SSRN – Use to access periodicals, but make sure they’re peer reviewed

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3 ICLL (Index to Canadian Legal Literature)  index of legal literature (journals, legal training material) Hein online – American and international journal articles SSRN – SS journals Rule 6.2.8 – Don’t use LTD or INC

The Canadian Constitution is a set of rules, setting out various institutions of government and the limits on their law-making power, amongst multiple other matters. Constitution also affirms and protects – but does not create – Aboriginal and Treaty rights. Aboriginal Law is not the same thing as Indigenous Law: Indigenous societies have their own systems of law to regulate conduct in their societies. Note that treaties with Indigenous peoples reflect that law and authority. The Constitution contemplates the separation of powers between branches or institutions of government and the division of powers between federal and provincial governments.

The Executive: “the role of the executive is to administer and implement policy” - the Executive receives delegated power to enact regulations through statute. Regulations are also legislation. The Executive is subordinate to the Legislative branch of government. Regulations must conform to the limits of Executive rule-making power delegated by the Legislature and to the constitutional limits

Common law includes interpretations of statutes and subordinate legislation Case law is just decisions/precedent

Cycle 2:

Canadian Abridgment Digest – group of case summaries organized by topic (these are secondary sources because they’re case briefs not full cases, but you should still start with books and articles before you move to these)

The Dictionary of Canadian Law – check these footnotes

Cycle 3:

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Court Reporters – A collection of cases, they’re hand-picked to be included in reporters because they are noteworthy for some reason, they often advance the law – SCC and Federal court reports are “official” they’re published with the sanction of the court Government Ontario court reports are “Semi-official” – published in collaboration with the law society Dominion law reports are classified as “Other” because they’re published commercially – a lot of these are topic specific

Updating a case a history of reported decisions – check if it was appealed, check if all appeals have been exhausted or an appeal has been denied

Noting up a case -- a case’s subsequent treatment in other cases – researching out from the case, what other cases or disputes have used this case? How have they used it?

CanLii Uses: find cases you came across in your secondary sources, to update and note up cases, to test out different combinations of search terms once you’ve looked through secondary sources (and keep track of the combinations of words you’re using (last step)

Textbook Citation: Patrick J Monahan & Byron Shaw, Constitutional Law, 4th ed (Toronto: Irwin Law, 2013) at 40. Article Citation: Rachel Ariss & John Cutfeet, “Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation: Mining, Consultation, Reconciliation and Law” (2011) 10:1 Indigenous LJ 1 at 3.

If no issue number available write (2011) 10 Indigenous LJ 1 (first page of article) at 3

Cycle 4 Lexum Cases – Scc-csc.ca

Supreme Advocacy newsletter informs readers of leave decisions

Cycle 5

Westlaw -

Always Browse before searching – Texts and Annotations under Commentary

Find = Use to look for known items Search = Search for new content

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5 Advanced = access Boolean connectors Note hyperlinked footnotes and where CED and CAD are cross-referenced You can browse each journal for its 10 most recent documents To note up, go to Find and KeyCite by name – find the case – click citing references –search results

Cycle 6

Quicklaw *No Canadian Abridgement Digest on Quicklaw Browse  sources  by category  secondary materials  legal encyclopedia h for Halsbury’s  table of contents  choose a section (if you click the magnifying glass you can search within just that section) (go under help and make a note of the booleans)  search Browse  Search for a specific Journal (Journal of Family law)  click table of contents  click year  click article  go to footnote  click case  click history of case/citing cases Using “Or” will render either or both terms Secondary Materials  Law Reviews and Journals  Choose a journal and browse its table of contents To check citing references: type cit: and then the citation (2014 scc 44)

Cycle 7

Administrative Boards and Tribunals -

Created by the legislature, are an extension of the Executive branch to handle specific matters Created to reduce the workload of the judiciary & to have matters handled by specialized bodies To access decisions, go to the specific tribunal’s website and look to the statute (what does it say about the scope of power the board has?) Adjudicators don’t make common law, but you can expect that they’ll strive for consistency Whether you can appeal after the administrative board decision is made depends on the statute – there’s no freestanding right to an appeal Superior s. 96 courts can review the decisions of administrative board decisions via JR -- JR can be appealed and these decisions create common law

Finding Federal Tribunal Decisions: CanLII – click Boards and Tribunals – click I -- don’t use to note up WestLaw – Cases and Decisions – advanced search – court level, boards and tribunals Quicklaw – Narrow By – Boards & Tribunals

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6 Cycle 8

Legislation Made by legislature = statutes, acts, enactments Made by delegated authority = statutory instruments, delegated, subordinate, executive legislation, regulations, orders in council, rules, guidelines

Ontario Source Laws = Official Federal Annual Statutes = Not Official Consolidated Acts & Regulations on Justice Laws = Official

Federal Legislation Go to Justice.gc.ca (Justice Laws) – then you can search or go to consolidated Acts Once in the act, click table of contents, scroll to the bottom to get to regulations

Interpretation Section = definitions that use “means” indicate the definition is exhaustive, a non-exhaustive definition would use the word “includes” – If the statute says “may” there’s discretion, if it says “shall” it’s an obligation *To argue that an article should be included in the scope of the definition, you could liken it to the items listed, and explain how its inclusion is consistent with the overall scheme and purpose of the Act. You could point out the consequences of excluding an article from this definition.

Consequential amendment and Repeal sections provide information on the Act’s treatment after enactment

Schedule section is an appendix (info related to the Act, sets out categories) Prohibitions section consists of marginal notes not technically part of the Act, but are good interpretive tools.

The federal statute and accompanying regulations are both legally binding Consolidated Acts or Regulations” section of the Justice Laws Website – they reflect an up to date version of the Act and regulations (includes any amendments) – These are official – Main page of the act scroll to the bottom to see regulations Enabling Act is found under regulations Sometimes the regulation making power/grants of power are in a section called “general” – can be multiple places in the act

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Annual Statutes – provides a list of enacted statutes in any given year without amendments or consolidations – they are not official – we use them to determine what the scheme of an Act is or what parliament was intending

Use of CanLii in Legislative Research -

To see what cases have considered this statute Type in the statute in the note up box, or find the statute and click the note up button You can then narrow by section on the right and choose the cases tab to get only case results

Use Control F in the HTML version to avoid finding things in the marginal notes (which aren’t part of the Act)

Ontario Leglislation E-Laws/ Ontario.ca/laws Consolidated laws = statutes and regulations Click the act – then click the regulations Source laws = the law as originally enacted (statute or reg) these are official unlike annual statutes on justice laws

Cycle 9

Tracking Statuotry Change Federal Justice.gc.ca – select an act You can click previous versions – this is an indication that something has changed The historical notes/footnotes aren’t part of the act Previous versions “1996, c 19 s 5 2012, c 1 s 39” - they tell you about amending events – the first date is the act it was enacted, the last date is the citation of the amending act Find the text of the amending act by going to the Annual statutes 2012 indicates when this Act was most recently amended

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8 c 1 s 39 is a reference to the Amending Act that amended the act (this can be found in the annual statutes) s. 39 of the amending act is the provision of the amending act that changed the provision of the CDSA

Legal Effect = Coming into force = Commencement Assent = draft bill is enacted, sometimes this is simultaneous with commencement, but other times it’s not Interpretation act s 5(1) – The default is that an Act’s commencement is the same as the assent if the act is silent about commencement – there’s a parallel rule in Ontario leg

Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers – Not official information – use this to find the historical footnote/Statutory Instruments

Statutory Instruments can contain orders in council which are used to determine when a statute came into place

Canada Gazette: Part 2= includes SI and Statutory Orders and Regulations Part 3 = Official copies of statutes recently assented to *annual statutes on justice laws aren’t official – Gazette copy always prevails

Provincial Source Law to find the amending act, go to commencement section (if there is no commencement section, it comes into effect on the date of assent)

Proclamation by Leuitenant Governor means you need to check the proclamation date (it’s prospective), to check if an act is in force go to consolidated laws “provides for coming into force of provisions of this act” suggests it is in force – they’re omitted because they’ve already come into place but you still don’t know when, to determine this, check legislative tables

Legislative tables – proclamations – search for the act to get its date (date in force) – this is unofficial Legislative tables – public statutes and ministers responsible – search for the act – this tells us when the minister received responsibility for that statute (NOT the proclamation date) you have to go to the Ontario gazette to get the actual proclamation date

Ontario Gazette – search for the act (safeguarding) narrow by the year you got from the date in force from the legislative table, proclamation

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Cycle 10 Regulations and Amending Regulations Canada Gazette Part 1 – Notices and Proposed Regulations http://ontariocanada.com/registry Ontario regulations – more business focused E-Laws – Laws. Justice.gc.ca

Federal Regulations Consolidated regulations (most up to date regulations including changes) Class A Precursors These have footnotes under them - Ex. SOR/2013-122, s 19 Go to the Canada Gazette (to get the full text of the amending document) Find 2013-122 in the table of contents There’s a coming into force section and the RIAS (Regulatory impact action statement) RIAS provides information about the regulations and what they’re doing but they aren’t part of the regulation itself and they aren’t official, they’re just appropriate to use in the interpretive process, t...


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