Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Performance Measures 
Vancouver Law Courts
Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Performance Measures
Goal 1: The best justice system in Canada
What this means: The best justice system ensures the operation of the rule of law. It is visible and responsive to British Columbians. Matters can be resolved swiftly and fairly, providing early solutions and faster justice.
Court and other decision making processes are fair and effective. The system protects the innocent, pursues the guilty and is sensitive to the needs of victims.
The law is relevant to the conditions of our communities.
There is respect for the law, people have confidence in the justice system and they feel safe in their communities.
The Justice System in British Columbia
The Criminal Justice System works to stop crime from happening and addresses it quickly when it does occur; it brings offenders to justice with resolutions focused on reducing and tackling the causes of crime. The major components of the criminal justice system are: police, prosecution, legal aid, courts, judiciary, and corrections.
Both the Civil and Family Justice Systems touch everyone in the province and help private parties solve legal problems and disputes. This may involve going to court or making use of other dispute resolution processes such as mediation.
The Civil Justice System handles issues such as negligence or personal injury, small claims, commercial and corporate disputes, and enforcement of rights.
The Family Justice System handles issues such as divorce and matters affecting children.
Through the Administrative Justice System British Columbia’s Administrative Tribunals help resolve disputes between private parties and also between individuals and government. They may decide matters ranging from individual liberty to property values. They regulate complex economic activities and resolve disputes about public affairs such as the environment and public safety.
Objective 1.1: Fair, just, and impartial justice services
Independence of the Justice System
A free and democratic society based on the rule of law must have a justice system where judges and other participants in the justice system, such as police and Crown counsel, make decisions free of interference or control by others, including government. This independence is central to having a fair system that operates in the public interest.
What this means: the justice system safeguards the rights of all parties. Criminal prosecutions are fair, just, and impartial. Participants in the civil and family justice systems have equal and adequate opportunities to assert or defend their rights.
Objective 1.2: Accessible and efficient justice services
What this means: parties can choose from a menu of problem solving alternatives, including trials, that are affordable, understandable and can be tailored to fit the problem and their needs.
Objective 1.3: Safe, timely, and reliable justice services
What this means: justice system events take place as scheduled, in a safe environment and matters are resolved quickly.
Objective 1.4: Continually improved law and justice processes
What this means: the law is just, principled, understandable and serves the public interest. Law and justice processes keep pace with society.
Objective 1.5: Public has knowledge of and understands the justice system
What this means: the public understands the justice system, knows how it works and how to use it.
Strategies
The Ministry’s strategic priorities over the next three years to advance these objectives are:
Justice Transformation – Transformative change for British Columbia’s criminal, civil and family justice systems.
Civil and Family Justice Systems
Nanaimo Family Justice Services
Centre Opening
- Justice Access Centres – Front end, accessible justice information and service ‘hubs’ will provide people with assessment, information, advice, referral and other services they require to help solve their civil and family legal problems. The new Nanaimo Family Justice Services Centre will be expanded to include civil justice services in Spring 2008. A second Justice Access Centre is scheduled to open in Vancouver later in 2008.
- Streamlining Small Claims Court Proceedings – A simplified trial process before a Justice of the Peace for claims under $5,000 is being tested in Robson Square and Richmond. At Robson Square, a summary trial process before a Provincial Court judge for simple debt claims of any value, mandatory mediation for claims between $5,000 and $25,000, and a night court for simplified trials are also being tested.
- Civil and Family Law Reform – Simplify, modernize, and update the law, including a multi-year review of the Family Relations Act and an ongoing review of civil law, including Succession Law.
- Court Rule Reform
- Supreme Court Family Rules – Reform Family Court process by creating a new set of simplified and streamlined Supreme Court Rules that are harmonized, to the greatest extent possible, with Provincial Court Rules.
- Supreme Court Civil Rules – Implement new principles for managing cases, new processes such as the Case Planning Conference, and new approaches to streamlining litigation practice.
Criminal Justice System
- Community Court – Integrated justice, health, and social services to address crime in Vancouver’s downtown core. The community court will bring into one place prosecution, defence, corrections, victims services, health, housing and social services agencies to hold offenders accountable in a more timely way, and also to help them break their cycle of crime. The court will try to keep offenders safely in the community and provide the services they need to treat the issues (such as homelessness, addictions and mental illness) that drive their criminal activities.
- Prolific Offender Management – Agencies1 will co-ordinate at the local level to hold prolific offenders accountable through swift and certain consequences while providing them with social, mental health and addiction services to address issues that contribute to their criminal behaviour. The project will be launched in five pilot communities in the Spring of 2008.
- Bail Reform – Increase efficiency and effectiveness of bail processes. Successful reform will mean fewer delays in matters proceeding to trial, earlier releases where appropriate, reduced transport of accused, reduced incidents in which the accused are released away from their home community and fewer interruptions to scheduled court events.
- Provincial Community Safety Steering Committee – Establish provincial crime prevention and reduction strategies. The strategies will be based on the principles of collaboration and integration, and common priorities across the justice, health, and social sectors. The Committee represents agencies responsible for criminal justice, health and social service operations in British Columbia.
- Federal Criminal Justice Reform Advocacy – Focused and effective advocacy to achieve criminal justice reforms and an improved criminal justice system to meet the needs of British Columbians.
- National Chronic Offender Initiative – Leading the development of the national initiative that will link projects across Canada, to promote community projects that integrate key principles for chronic offenders and evaluate the effectiveness of these principles in reducing offending and increasing public confidence in the justice system.
- Missing Women – Leading the analysis of a national review of factors contributing to victimization of women who are vulnerable to serial predators, and develop recommendations to control the predators, reduce the risk to women, and increase the functional capacity of communities to partner in these strategies.
- Drug Facilitated Sexual Assaults – Leading a national review of strategies to address the use of synthetic drugs such as GHB to facilitate sexual assaults.
- Cyber-crime – Leading a national review to update the Criminal Code of Canada so that it addresses new technologies and new offences (such as Internet luring) that emerge from the criminal use of these technologies.
- Restorative Justice – Determining opportunities to integrate restorative justice principles into existing criminal justice responses, with a view toward ensuring offender accountability, victim satisfaction and community participation in addressing local crime problems.
Performance Measure 1: Public confidence in the justice system
| Performance Measure | 2006/07 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of British Columbians who have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the justice system. | 46.5% | 47% | 49% | 51% | 53% |
| Data Source: BC Omnibus Survey conducted by BC Statistics from September 2006 through February 2007. | |
| Note: Previously, the data source for this baseline was the Statistics Canada 2003 General Social Survey on Social Engagement (Cycle 17). |
Discussion
Public confidence in the justice system is a key indicator of an effective justice system. This performance measure is also being used by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
The forecast and targets are based on the averaged (rounded) public confidence results from the 2006/07 monthly BC Omnibus Survey conducted by BC Statistics. The margin of error is +/-1.82 per cent. The BC Omnibus Survey uses a subset of the survey questions from the Statistics Canada 2003 General Social Survey on Social Engagement (Cycle 17). This survey measures confidence in public institutions and is conducted roughly every five years.
Performance Measure 2: Public perceptions of the criminal justice system
| Performance Measures | 2006/07 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of British Columbians 15 years and older who perceive that the criminal courts do a good job of: | |||||
| Providing justice quickly | 13% | 15% | 17% | 19% | 21% |
| Helping the victim | 13% | 15% | 17% | 19% | 21% |
| Determining whether or not the accused is guilty | 28% | 30% | 32% | 34% | 36% |
| Ensuring a fair trial for the accused | 52% | 54% | 56% | 58% | 60% |
| Data Source: BC Omnibus Survey conducted by BC Statistics from September 2006 through February 2007. | |
| Note: Previously, the data source for the baseline was the Statistics Canada 2004 General Social Survey on Victimization (Cycle 18). |
Discussion
Public perceptions of specific functions of the criminal courts are indicators of an effective criminal justice system and may contribute to understanding the sources of public confidence in the criminal justice system.
The forecast and targets are based on the averaged (rounded) public confidence results from the 2006/07 monthly BC Omnibus Survey conducted by BC Statistics. The margin of error is +/-1.48 per cent. The BC Omnibus Survey uses a subset of the survey questions from the Statistics Canada 2004 General Social Survey on Victimization (Cycle 18). This survey is used by Statistics Canada to examine public perceptions of the criminal courts across all provinces and is conducted roughly every five years.
This measure reports the percentage of respondents who believe that the criminal courts are doing a good job in these specific functions. However, close to 60 per cent of respondents perceive the criminal courts are doing an average or good job providing justice quickly and helping the victim. Approximately 80 per cent of respondents perceive that the criminal courts are doing an average or good job determining whether the accused is guilty and 92 per cent perceive the criminal courts are doing an average or good job of ensuring a fair trial for the accused.
Performance Measure 3: Perceptions of the civil and family justice systems
| Performance Measures | 2007/08 Baseline | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of British Columbians 15 years and older who perceive that the civil and family justice system does a good job of: | ||||
| Providing justice quickly | 10% | 12% | 14% | 16% |
| Helping parties solve their problems | 16% | 18% | 20% | 22% |
| Determining the appropriate outcomes of disputes | 16% | 18% | 20% | 22% |
| Ensuring a fair process for all parties | 23% | 25% | 27% | 29% |
| Ensuring access to justice for all parties | 24% | 26% | 28% | 30% |
| Data Source: BC Omnibus Survey conducted by BC Statistics. This survey was conducted for the months of October 2007 and December 2007. |
Discussion
Public perceptions of specific functions of the civil and family justice system are indicators of an effective justice system and may contribute to understanding the sources of public confidence in the civil and family justice system.
This measure reports the percentage of respondents who believe that the civil and family justice systems are doing a good job in these specific functions. However, approximately two thirds of British Columbians perceive that the civil and family justice systems are doing an average or good job of performing these functions.
The average margin of error is +/- 2.79 per cent, and there are three times as many ‘don’t know’ responses as in the criminal justice survey (measure 2). The higher margin of error is due to the number of ‘don’t know’ responses and a smaller sample. The high number of ‘don’t know’ responses provides valuable information that may help guide Ministry priorities and will continue to be monitored.
This broader measure replaces client satisfaction with mediation as a performance measure for the civil and family justice system.
Performance Measure 4: Timeliness of criminal case conclusion
| Performance Measure | 2006/07 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median time to conclude provincial criminal cases. | 82 days | 81 days | 80 days | 79 days | 78 days |
| Data Source: Court Services Branch criminal MIS system (CORIN). This data is from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. |
Discussion
Timeliness in reaching case conclusion is an indicator of an effective criminal justice system and may contribute to public confidence in the justice system. This measure includes all criminal adult and youth provincial court cases completed in fiscal 2006/07 and reports on the median time it takes from the date information is sworn to the conclusion date.
Previously this measure reported the mean time to conclusion; however, this can be skewed by a small percentage of anomalous cases. The median is less sensitive to extreme values and therefore more accurately reflects overall timeliness. In 2006/07, 70 per cent of all cases were concluded within six months and 86 per cent were concluded within 12 months.
Performance Measure 5: Civil and family timeliness
| Performance Measures | 2006/07 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Median time to settlement conference for Small Claims Cases in Provincial Court. | 153 days | 151 days | 149 days | 148 days | 147 days |
| Median time to trial for Civil Small Claims in Provincial Court. | 296 days | 293 days | 290 days | 287 days | 284 days |
| Median time for Family Cases to reach first order. | 90 days | 89 days | 88 days | 87 days | 86 days |
| Data Source: CEIS (Courts Electronic Information System). This data from April 1, 2006 to March 31, 2007. |
Discussion
Timeliness in small claims and family cases is an indicator of an effective civil and family justice system and may contribute to public confidence in the justice system. Small claims are cases valued at $25,000 or less.
Median Time to Settlement Conference:
This measure reports the median time between opening a case and the first settlement conference for small claims in Provincial Court.
Previously this measure reported the mean number of days to settlement conference; however, this can be skewed by a small percentage of anomalous cases. The median is less sensitive to extreme values, and therefore more accurately reflects overall timeliness. In 2006/07, two-thirds of small claims cases reached settlement conference within six months.
Median Time to Trial:
This measure reports the median time it takes small claims cases to reach the trial stage in Provincial Court.
Previously this measure reported the mean number of days to trial and now uses the median as the mean can be skewed by a small percentage of anomalous cases. The median is less sensitive to extreme values, and therefore more accurately reflects overall timeliness. In 2006/07, 14 per cent of small claims trials were held within six months and 67 per cent were held within 12 months.
Family Cases to First Order:
This measure reports the median time between the filing of an Application to Obtain an Order (or Application to Change/Cancel an Order) and the date the first corresponding order is granted.
This replaces a measure for family hearings that reported the average time between the date the initiating document was filed and the appearance date when the first order was made. By focusing on substantive applications and not limiting the data to case initiating documents, the new measure more accurately reflects court timeliness. In 2006/07, 81 per cent of family matters were granted an order within six months and 95 per cent were granted an order within 12 months.
Goal 2: Excellent legal services to government
What this means: Government receives high quality legal advice and representation that advance government’s goals and priorities. British Columbia legislation is clear and drafted in understandable language. Government understands, anticipates and manages legal matters in the public interest. Public affairs are administered lawfully.
Objective 2.1: Timely, relevant and innovative legal advice
What this means: Government understands its rights and responsibilities as they relate to specific issues or law. Government receives legal representation before courts and tribunals that ensure the administration of public affairs is in accordance with the law. The public interest is upheld and government objectives are accomplished within the law.
Legal Services Branch lawyers
Strategies
A key strategic priority in providing legal services to the government is:
Climate Action Legal Team – establish a center of excellence in climate change law, a newly emerging area of specialized inter-disciplinary law. The Team will increase environmental law expertise across existing practice groups and provide strategic legal expertise to support government’s climate change initiative.
Goal 3: The best place for newcomers
What this means: Newcomers have the services and supports they need to gain social and labour market skills to contribute, reach their full
potential and understand and practice Canadian values related to multiculturalism and human rights. WelcomeBC means communities
in British Columbia are welcoming and support the arrival, adaptation, and integration of newcomers, are accepting of cultural
diversity, and help newcomers to fully participate and integrate into daily life.
Objective 3.1: Newcomers are settled in their communities
What this means: Newcomers have the information they need about English language courses, employment, schools, health care, housing, recreation, and other services to allow them to participate in their communities.
Objective 3.2: Newcomers are able to use English in their daily lives
What this means: English classes provide newcomers with the language skills they need to move forward in their careers and become a part of their new communities.
Objective 3.3: Communities welcome and support newcomers, accept cultural diversity, and address racism
What this means: Communities support the arrival, adaptation and integration of newcomers and have the tools they need to prevent and respond to racism.
Strategies
The Ministry’s strategic priority over the next three years to advance these objectives is:
WelcomeBC – a comprehensive approach to enhance settlement and integration services to help newcomers better adapt to life in their new communities and assist communities to be more welcoming to newcomers.
ESL Class
- Ensure government economic and social development initiatives incorporate the opportunities and challenges of immigration and multiculturalism.
- Reinforce and revitalize government’s anti-racism programs.
- Deliver English Language Services for Adults more broadly by working cross ministry, using alternative service delivery models, and exploring options for distance education.
- Develop English Language Services for Adults that will respond specifically to the labour market needs of immigrants.
- Develop, in partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Citizen’s Services, through the Citizen-Centered Service Delivery for British Columbians strategy, a corporate approach to enhancing multilingual access to British Columbia Government information and services.
- Through the ActNow initiative, provide leadership in coordinating community partnerships and developing promotional materials that will help create lifelong habits for better health outcomes with British Columbia’s multicultural and immigrant communities.
Performance Measure 6: Reported ability to use English
| Performance Measure | 2005/06 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of recent immigrants in language training who report greater ability to use English. | 76% | 78% | 80% | 82% | 84% |
| Data Source: Data source is the 2005 BCSAP Outcomes and Client Satisfaction Survey – Stream 3, Synovate Ltd., December 2005. The survey has a 95 per cent confidence level that results are accurate within +/-3.0 per cent. |
Discussion
The ability to speak, read and write the language(s) of the adopted country assists settlement and allows new immigrants to access the amenities and services that are available in the communities where they reside. Facility in the English language can also help immigrants make the best use of education and employment opportunities. This baseline is based on a survey conducted by a private survey company over two consecutive years.
Performance Measure 7: Relevance of settlement information
| Performance Measure | 2005/06 Baseline | 2007/08 Forecast | 2008/09 Target | 2009/10 Target | 2010/11 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of surveyed clients who reported receiving information relevant to their settlement needs. | 80% | 82% | 84% | 86% | 88% |
| Data Source: Data sources are biennial BCSAP Outcomes and Client Surveys, designed and administered by Synovate Ltd. The sample selection process is not randomized. There is a possibility of participant selection bias. The surveys have a 95% confidence level that results are accurate within +/-2.0 per cent. |
Discussion
Enabling settlement supports immigrants and refugees in realizing their full potential and has direct benefits to local communities. Information and support services assist immigrants and refugees to establish themselves in their new communities, to gain social connections, to gain a better understanding of Canadian systems and culture, to provide support through the adjustment process and to find employment. The baseline is based on a survey conducted by a private survey company over two consecutive years. This measure replaces the number of communities that have participated in the Critical Incident Response Model used as a performance measure in previous service plans.
| 1 | Ministries of Attorney General, Public Safety and Solicitor General, Employment and Income Assistance, Children and Family Development, Health and BC Housing, RCMP, municipal police, health authorities, federal corrections and other related agencies. |
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