2011 SCC 5 (Released February 4, 2011)
Constitutional Law – Interim Costs Awards –
Inherent Jurisdiction of the Courts – Inferior
Courts
Here the Supreme Court held that Superior Courts can make
interim costs awards to fund public interest litigation in the
inferior provincial courts.
In the underlying litigation, the Respondent Caron had
challenged the constitutional validity of Alberta Provincial Court
proceedings on the basis that the court documents were solely in
English. Caron pleaded that the provisions of the Alberta Languages
Act, which purported to abrogate French Language rights in order to
permit such unilingual documents, was unconstitutional.
At issue in the Supreme Court of Canada was the funding of
Caron's litigation. The Provincial Court had made an interim
costs order – an "Okanagan order", so
named after the case which enables them – in favour of
Caron. The Alberta Court of Queen's Bench
("ACQB") set aside this order on the
ground that the
