Download This PaperCourt Fee-waiver Processes in Canada: How Wrong Assumptions, Change Resistance and Data Vacuums Hurt Vulnerable Parties
Supreme Court Law Review, Second Series, Volume 96
20 Pages Posted: 13 Apr 2020 Last revised: 13 May 2020
Date Written: March 24, 2020
Abstract
Court fee waiver processes in Canada, and particularly the process used in British Columbia superior courts, impose extraordinary administrative burdens on low income people by requiring them to navigate needlessly complex, costly, and humiliating procedures to avoid paying relatively modest, yet unaffordable, court fees. There is no empirical evidence supporting this onerous fee waiver process. There is significant empirical and firsthand evidence both that the existing process is harmful to vulnerable parties and that simplifying the process would not lead to an increase in fraud or open the floodgate to applications. The paper sets out key principles in accessible public process design and proposes a framework for human-centred fee waiver processes, based on the Civil Resolution Tribunal’s process which was co-designed with community legal advocates. In closing, the paper argues that court fee waiver processes are just one example of our public justice system’s persistent failure to challenge unfounded assumptions with empirical evidence, and design based on public need. In doing so, the justice system disproportionately hurts already marginalized people, compromising the rule of law and the constitutionally protected right to access the courts.
Keywords: fee waiver, access to justice, online dispute resolution, ODR, Civil Resolution Tribunal, in forma pauperis, human-centred design, administrative burdens, poverty law
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Shannon Salter (Contact Author)
Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia ( email )
1822 East Mall
Vancouver, British Columbia V6T 1Z1
Canada