8.3 CANADA

8.3.1 Report series

(a) Official reports

The current official report series for the Supreme Court of Canada is the Canada Supreme Court Reports (SCR).

A table of the official report series for Canadian federal, provincial and territorial courts is set out in Appendix 3. Where available use the official report series in preference to unofficial report series.

(b) Unofficial report series

Many of the official Canadian report series are not commonly available in New Zealand. Accordingly, it is permissible to cite widely available unofficial report series if these are more readily available. Some of the more commonly available Canadian report series are the Dominion Law Reports, the Canadian Criminal Cases, the Western Weekly Reports and the Atlantic Provinces Reports.

8.3.2 Court identifiers

(a) Reported cases

When citing a reported case, include a court identifier, in accordance with rule 3.2.7. Use the abbreviation adopted in the official neutral citation (in accordance with what follows below the jurisdiction identifier may be removed if it is evident from the report series). A list of Canadian court identifiers used in neutral citations is included in Appendix 3. As the Canada Supreme Court Reports (SCR) contain only decisions of the Canadian Supreme Court, it is unnecessary to include a court identifier.

(b) Jurisdiction

When citing a decision of a court of one of the provinces or territories and the jurisdiction is not evident from the report series, include a jurisdiction identifier before the court identifier without a space. Use the jurisdiction identifier adopted in the official neutral citation. A list of Canadian court identifiers used in neutral citations is included in Appendix 3.

8.3.3 Neutral citations

(a) Year

Cite Canadian neutral citations in accordance with rule 3.3, except that, following the Canadian practice, do not put the year in brackets. This distinguishes neutral citations from citations to printed report series.

(b) Availability

When available, use an official neutral citation before the report specific citation. If you are unsure whether a neutral citation is official, the tables in Appendix 3 indicate when the various Canadian courts adopted neutral citations.

Note that some earlier decisions have been given what look like neutral citations by the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII). These are not official and should not be used.