The possibility of establishing a neutral citation standard can be attributed to the efforts of an advisory committee of the Canadian Judicial Council and also, to similar initiatives in the United-States and Australia.
Since August 1997, the Canadian Citation Committee has been working to elaborate a new citation standard for Canadian case law (See the Montreal Declaration). To accomplish this, the Committee's members from various sectors of the legal information sphere participated in many conference calls in order to put forth an acceptable standard. The Development of a Neutral Citation Standard for Canadian Case Law document acts as a draft for the Committee's proposal to give new research tools to the legal community.
However, the elaboration of a standard which is of general interest for the legal community cannot be done behind closed doors without an external input on the project itself, may it be negative or positive. Thus, during the winter of 1999, the Committee proceeded in a vast consultation of various members of Canada's legal community. The following were consulted :
- Courts and Tribunals of Canada, Provinces and Territories;
- Justice Departments of Canada, Provinces and Territories;
- Law Societies of Provinces and Territories;
- Deans of Canadian Law Faculties;
- Canadian Legal Publishers and Electronic Editors;
- Canadian Legal Associations.
The purpose of the Consultation on the Neutral Citation Standard was to gather comments from the consulted individuals and to get the pulse of the Canadian legal community concerning this new standard. Those who were consulted received the Consultation Document as well as a copy of the questionnaire used to collect the comments. The Consultation Document's purpose was to explain the steps that were taken until the Consultation phase, to present the standard itself and to precise the motives that guided our choices as well as the Standard's actual form. The Committee wanted to make people react, send us their comments, questions and suggestions concerning the standard, its use, its format and application.
The consultation ended at the beginning of the month of March 1999. During that time, we received more than 70 comments from different individuals and organizations (To access the list of comments). Certain Committee members then proceeded to synthesize the comments. In order to reevaluate the standard, the Canadian Citation Committee organized a meeting in Montreal on the 25, 26 and 27 of March 1999. This "in-person" meeting helped the Committee adapt the standard to the comments as well as to precise and clarify certain aspects of the document (See Changes to the Standard).
Thus, the final version of the Standard (A Neutral Citation Standard for Case Law) was presented to the Judges Computer Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council, at the Canadian Association of Law Libraries' conference that was held in Banff, Alberta, from May 31st to June 2nd (Adopted Resolution), and at the Canadian Judicial Council's meeting on June 18 1999 (Adopted Resolution).
Bruno Ménard, June 28 1999