“The Life of a Reserve”: How Might We Improve the Structure, Content, Accessibility, Length & Timeliness of Judicial Decisions? by Jon Khan A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws (LL.M) Graduate Department of the Faculty of Law University of Toronto © Copyright by Jon Khan (2019) “The Life of a Reserve”: How Might We Improve the Structure, Content, Accessibility, Length & Timeliness of Judicial Decisions? Jon Khan Masters of Law Faculty of Law University of Toronto 2019 Abstract This thesis explains how judicial decisions may impact access to justice and how might we make decisions a better source of data while also making them more timely, concise, accessible, and consistent. It examines the historical and theoretical underpinnings of Canadian decisions and the relationship of decision-writing to decision-making. It then discusses the results of an original empirical study of the evolution of British Columbia trial decisions over the last forty years and a survey of Canadian courts. It argues that the current process for writing and issuing Canadian judicial decisions likely does not further the goals of access to justice and may even hinder them. To improve access to justice, it suggests that governments, academics, and judiciaries should rely on human-centered design to design standardized structures and templates for decisions, and it provides a design plan for such reforms and examines the ways judicial independence may impact such reforms. ii Acknowledgments To my advisor—Professor Andrew Green—I would have been rudderless without your direction. Thank you for motivating me to continually think about why judges do what they do and to persistently explore my intuitions about the law and what data can reveal. To my professors who motivated me to think differently about the law and the people who interact with Canada’s legal system—Professors Gillian Hadfield and Dan Ryan—thank you for believing in me and challenging me. You greatly inspire me. To my former professors who wrote reference letters whenever I asked—Professors John Currie, Anthony Daimsis, Joseph Rikhof & Penelope Simons—thank you for your time and support. I cherish all the opportunities you have given me. To my future PhD supervisor—Professor Sean Rehaag—thank you for helping me streamline one step of my data collection and for your support in the PhD application process. I look forward to working together in the future. To my great and patient friend—Jonathan Kroening—thank you for your perspicacity. You truly helped me understand my data and drastically improved my vision. You have a great ability to help people improve themselves and their work. To my close friends who are always willing to read my work and to talk about the law—Tom Posyniak, Lars Brusven & Steven Davis—much of my success this year is because of your help and curiosity. To my fan number one—Nicole Gilewicz—you are my home. Your mind and heart are bigger than any obstacle I could ever face. Thank you for always reading and improving my work; listening to me drone on; and challenging me to remain curious and without silos. I would not be here without you. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... vi List of Appendices ....................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Part I: A brief history of the common law decision and the relationship of decision-writing to decision-making ........................................................................................................................ 4 i. A brief history: accurate, published, written, reasoned decisions and stare decisis were developed as tools to legitimize the judiciary’s role in the UK legal system ..................................... 4 (a) Pre-1750s: accurate, published, written decisions were not a creature of this period ................................ 6 (b) 1750s-1960s: The genesis of the accurate, published, written, reasoned decision ..................................... 7 ii. Another brief history: the requirement to issue reasoned decisions—in certain contexts—is a recent Canadian phenomenon .......................................................................................................... 10 iii. The relationship of decision-writing to decision-making: the key task of “judging” is deciding issues—not writing decisions ................................................................................................ 16 (a) Decisions in the model: decision-writing is a check on decision-making ................................................ 22 (b) Judges as good workers: identifying with the mission ............................................................................. 23 Part II: The evolution of the length, structure, and delivery time of British Columbia trial decisions ....................................................................................................................................... 29 i. Design of the empirical study and explanation of methodology .............................................. 32 ii. Summary of descriptive and predictive analysis ....................................................................... 38 (a) Descriptive conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 38 (b) Predictive conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 45 1. Word count ................................................................................................................................................ 46 2. Delivery time ............................................................................................................................................ 46 iii. Word count, delivery time, and judges’ workload: granular results ...................................... 47 (a) Word count ................................................................................................................................................ 48 (b) Delivery time ............................................................................................................................................. 50 (c) Judges’ workload ...................................................................................................................................... 52 iv. Limitations and suggestions for further research ..................................................................... 54 v. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 54 Part III: How Canadian courts currently approach the structure, style, and timeliness of decisions ....................................................................................................................................... 57 i. Survey design ................................................................................................................................ 58 ii. Participation ................................................................................................................................. 59 (a) Non-participating courts ........................................................................................................................... 60 (b) Participating courts ................................................................................................................................... 61 iii. Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 62 iv Part IV: How human-centered design could improve judicial decisions’ structure, length, accessibility, content, and timeliness ......................................................................................... 64 i. The background of human-centered design and its use in the legal system ........................... 64 ii. Phase I: develop empathy about how judges write decisions and how people consume them 70 (a) How judges write decisions: the understudied craft of writing decisions ................................................. 71 (b) How people consume decisions: the understudied experience of consuming decisions .......................... 73 iii. Phase II: define the problems of judges and other users .......................................................... 75 (a) Problem one: how might we help judges issues shorter and more timely decisions? ............................... 77 (b) Problem two: how might we help judges write more digestible decisions? ............................................. 78 (c) Problem three: how might we help judges use decision-writing to improve decision-making? .............. 81 iv. Phase III: brainstorm and build ideas—aka “ideation”—for improving decisions’ structure and content