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The Provincial Court will resume in-person proceedings for priority matters that cannot be accommodated remotely on a staged and incremental basis beginning June 8, 2020.

This Notice provides information for anyone who will appear before the Provincial Court for a remote proceeding beginning May 7, 2020 until further notice. In this Notice, the term “remote proceeding” means a hearing or case conference conducted by audioconference (including telephone or Microsoft Teams) or videoconference (including Microsoft Teams).

Chief Judge Gillespie has issued five updated notices today. Highlights are outlined below. Please note that while Provincial Court registries are now accepting all filings in-person, people are encouraged to use remote filing options, including email, to reduce the number of people in courthouses.

What has become clear, however, is the benefits from the incredible improvement in communications Eby has nurtured and what that has meant.

Effective July 13, 2020, parties may book Case Planning Conferences (CPCs) in accordance with the process set out in the Supreme Court Civil Rules, as modified in this notice.

COVID-19 has ravaged the country’s legal system and precipitated a long backlog of cases that has Attorney General David Eby and his counterparts in other provinces scrambling.

A one-year moratorium and possible elimination of civil juries and mandatory arbitration on motor vehicle litigation are being considered by Attorney General David Eby to ease the burgeoning backlog in B.C. Supreme Court.

This Notice provides directions on filing documents in civil and criminal appeals. Beginning 14 July 2020 this Notice rescinds and replaces the directions described in section 3.2 of the Notice to the Public Regarding the Court of Appeal’s Response to Covid-19 dated 7 July 2020.

In order to increase the number of matters that can be heard during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Supreme Court of British Columbia will begin Remote Video Conference (“RVC”) hearings, using Microsoft Teams (“Teams”) in most cases.

The Court has expanded the scope of its in-court operations. However, attendance at courthouses is discouraged except where necessary for registry business or for a hearing that is scheduled to occur in person in a courtroom. This will help minimize the overall number of people in courthouses.