LAC Forum on Canadian Democracy

Justice

Canada's justice system is composed of numerous institutions working in concert to promote respect for Canadian rights, laws, and freedoms and to ensure that the Canadian legal system is accessible to all citizens. The offices of the Minister of Justice, Attorney General, Solicitor General, and Justices of the Supreme Court all have historical roots going back to the early years of Confederation. Each of these offices have made significant contributions to the way in which justice is carried out in Canada. Library and Archives Canada gathers and makes available many of the documents produced by the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, and the Solicitor General's Secretariat in addition to the personal papers accumulated by the individuals who have held these offices.

1. Government of Canada

The Department of Justice is the body that provides legal service to the Government of Canada and oversees the administration of the Canadian system of justice. Series of particular interest within this fonds are:

• Department of Justice fonds
• The Operational records of the Legislation Section
• The Central registry
• Legal opinion and material of precedential value
• The Legal Branch
• Capital punishment case files sub-series

LAC holds records of some Ministers of Justice, for example:

• John Turner fonds, Justice series
• Kim Campbell fonds, Minister of Justice series

The Office of the Solicitor General was created in 1892 to assist the Minister of Justice. In 1966, it became the Department of the Solicitor General, with responsibility for corrections and law enforcement in Canada.

• Solicitor General Secretariat fonds

For records documenting the evolution of the penal system in Canada, see:

• Correctional Service of Canada fonds

2. Supreme Court of Canada

LAC holds a rich body of records generated by the Supreme Court of Canada, including all case files of the Supreme Court.

• Supreme Court of Canada fonds
• The Case files series

LAC also holds the private records of justices and chief justices, many of whom were instrumental in the development of the Constitution, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the establishment of the Supreme Court of Canada as the final court of appeal in this country. Selected private records:

• Sir William Buell Richards fonds
• Fonds Charles Fitzpatrick
• Lyman Poore Duff fonds
• Fonds Thibodeau Rinfret
• Bora Laskin fonds
• Brian Dickson fonds
• Fonds Antonio Lamer
• Fonds Jean Beetz
• Willard Zebedee Estey fonds
• William R. McIntyre fonds
• Gerald le Dain fonds
• Fonds Claire L'Heureux-Dubé
• Gérard V. La Forest fonds
• John Sopinka fonds
• Fonds Charles Doherty Gonthier
• Peter deCarteret Cory fonds
• Fonds Michel Bastarache

3. Military justice

Courts martial are the legal bodies with the authority to conduct trials for military offences. LAC has Courts martial records documenting the proceedings of trials during the First World War. This collection may be searched online in LAC's Courts-Martial of the First World War database.

4. Independent institutions

Active from 1971 to 1992, the Law Reform Commission was the predecessor body to the Law Commission of Canada. The records in this fonds include those maintained by the Law Reform Commission and its predecessors.

• Law Reform Commission of Canada fonds (1970-1992)

The Law Commission of Canada existed between 1997 and 2006 with the mandate of studying and providing systematic review of Canadian law and its effect, and in so doing produced discussion papers, research studies, joint publications and reports to Parliament. Processing of these records is incomplete and access may be restricted.

• Law Commission of Canada fonds (1997-2006)

5. Published Materials

As a national catalogue, AMICUS not only shows the published materials held at Library and Archives Canada but also those located in over 1300 libraries across Canada. AMICUS contains over 30 million records for books, magazines, newspapers, government documents, theses, sound recordings, maps, electronic texts, as well as items in braille and large print.

Using the Advanced Search option in AMICUS and selecting "Publication Type", you can limit your search to "Government publications – Federal/national" or "Government publications – State, prov., terr. etc." You can also narrow your search by language and date, as well as format. Specifying "Web documents" in the latter will limit the search to full-text electronic publications.

Here re some sample Subject Keyword searches:

• Canada. Dept. of Justice
• Canada. Solicitor General
• Canada. Correctional Service
• Justice, Administration of – Canada
• Canada. Supreme Court
• Judges – Canada
• Military law – Canada
• Courts-martial – Canada
• Canada. Law Reform Commission
• Canada. Law Commission