Judgments & Decisions
Provincial Court judges make thousands of decisions each year. The reasons they give for their decisions are sometimes called “judgments”, “reasons”, or just “decisions”. Often, Provincial Court judges explain their reasons by speaking to the people in the courtroom. This is called an “oral judgment”. A judge may also prepare written reasons (in some cases reading them aloud in court) and they will be placed in the court file.
Some of these written reasons are posted online on the CanLII (Canadian Legal Information Institute) databank, particularly in cases of public interest or involving a point of law. In a high-profile case, written reasons may be posted on the home page of the Court’s website www.provincialcourt.bc.ca under "Recent Judgments", for the first few days after they are issued until they can be posted on CanLII.
Use the "Search Judgments" button to find BC Provincial Court judgments on CanLII. See how to obtain oral and written judgments if there's no judgment online on CanLII.
Legal research guides
- For help in finding Provincial Court decisions on CanLII, see How to find Provincial Court Decisions on CanLII.
- To learn the basics of legal research and get more detailed information about using CanLII, see The CanLII Primer
- To develop a step-by-step legal research process, particularly if you’re a legal professional, see The Canadian Legal Research and Writing Guide
- For tips on trackng case law and legislation, and using Court Services Online, see Legal Research for Journalists a BC Courthouse Libraries’ webinar.
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To receive an RSS feed of all B.C. Provincial Court decisions posted on CanLII, see CanLII ProvCourt RSS feed (Internet Explorer works better for this than Chrome)
Recent Provincial Court Judgments