Template:Cite Canadian Court/doc

Usage

 * optional: litigants is the list of litigants, such as R v. Macki. If a Wikipedia article by that name exists a link to it will be made.
 * optional: decisionyear is the year the decision came out
 * optional: reporterear is the year of the reporter, if necessary for the citation
 * optional: vol is the volume of the reporter.
 * optional: reporter is S.C.R. for Supreme Court Reporter.
 * optional: series is the series of the reporter (such as 2d or 3d).
 * optional: page is a specific reference.
 * optional: court is the court (such as "C.A." ). Not to be used for Supreme Court cases since it's implied with S.C.R.
 * optional: url is a URL with information on the case.

This template is based on information in the article Case citation and the template Cite Court

Legal Citation in Canada
There are a number of citation standards in Canada. Many legal publishing companies and schools have their own practice for citation. Since the late 1990s, however, there has been a convergence among much of legal community to a single standard which has been formulated in the "The Canadian Guide to Uniform Legal Citation", known as the "McGill Guide" after the McGill Law Journal that publishes it. The following format reflects this standard.

The standard case citation in Canada looks like this:


 * Hunter v. Southam, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 145.

The format can be broken into its component parts:

The Style of Cause is italicized as in all other countries and the party names are separated by "v." (English) or "c." (French). Prior to 1984 the appellant party would always be named first. However, since then case names do not switch order when the case is appealed.

Undisclosed parties to a case are represented by initials (eg. R. v. R.D.S.). Criminal cases are prosecuted by the Crown which is always represented by "R." for Regina (queen) or Rex (king). Constitutional references are always entitled "Reference re" followed by the subject title.

Usually either the year of the decision or the year of the reporter is cited, but not usually both. Only if they are different years can they both be cited at the same time. If they are the same, one should always use the reporter year.

Where available cases should be cited with their neutral citation immediately after the style of cause and preceding the print citation. For example,


 * Chaoulli v. Quebec (Attorney General), 2005 SCC 35, [2005] 1 S.C.R. 791.

This format was introduced in 2006. Prior to this format, the opposite order of parallel citation was used.

Neutral citation
In 1999 the Canadian Judicial Council adopted a neutral citation standard for case law. The format provides a naming system that does not depend on the publication of the case a law report.

The standard format look like this:

There is a unique court identifier code for most courts. There are a few courts in Quebec and Ontario that have yet to adopt the system. A list of the court identifiers include: