The Court’s 2022/23 Annual Report highlights some of the ways the Court has used technology to improve access to justice, including by solidifying front-end procedures in criminal, family, and small claims cases where people attend by video-conference instead of travelling to a courthouse, and by using technology to accelerate and streamline document processing.
It also contains detailed data on:
- Judges’ and judicial justices’ demographics
- Caseload and operational standards
- Percentages of virtual appearances and appearances by people without lawyers
as well as information on judicial education, Indigenous and community courts, circuit courts, and summaries of complaints about the Court’s judicial officers.
Among other facts, the Report reveals that:
- On March 31, 2023, 52% of full-time judges were women.
- The Court dealt with 133,700 new cases in 2022/23. The Report breaks these down by division and region.
- In 71% of the 595,195 total appearances in criminal, family, and small claims cases at least one person attended by video-conference or telephone. After COVID-related limits on in-person appearances were removed, many people still chose to attend virtually.
See the Report at https://www.provincialcourt.bc.ca/downloads/pdf/AnnualReport2022-2023.pdf
