Canada’s highest court has ruled that the province of British Columbia (B.C.) has a right to charge administrative court fees, but the fees cannot be so high that they prevent people from using the legal system.
The justices of the Supreme Court ruled that while the B.C. fee scheme would exempt the poorest people, it could prevent people of modest means from pursuing legal claims and limit their access to the legal system.
This particular case involved a child-custody dispute in which a woman said she could not pay the $3,600 fee for a 10-day trial.
Going to court is expensive
Even without the administrative fees, going to court is very expensive in Canada. Only the poorest are entitled to free lawyers’ services, and for the rest, hourly rates are so high that increasingly, people are choosing to represent themselves.
A study of family courts in the province of Ontario found that 50 to 80 per cent of all proceedings involved one or both parties representing themselves. This lengthened the proceedings, caused more conflict and reduced the chances of an out of court settlement.
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