REPORT | Looking Up from Down Under: The Federal Court of Australia’s Digital Strategy and its Lessons for Canadian Courts (By Alan Diner)
‟Looking Up from Down Under:
The Federal Court of Australia’s Digital Strategy and its Lessons for Canadian Courts“
BY THE HONOURABLE ALAN S. DINER
Executive Summary
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This Report incorporates research conducted in Australia and Canada during a Study Leave between September 2023 and April 2024. Australia provided the primary comparative reference for this study and, as contemplated in my Study Leave Proposal (see Annex A), I focus on the Federal Court of Australia’s leadership in digitization. For simplicity, I have shortened that Court to “AusFC,” which is distinct from the customary acronym “FCA” used Down Under. This is intended to minimize confusion with Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal, which I will define as FCA. The AusFC was a model to the Federal Court of Canada (FC) through its early adoption of technology and its pre-COVID-19 digital shift.
AusFC made concerted efforts through carefully constructed planning to move itself and its users from a paper-based past to a digital format. Through a comprehensive consultation process, followed by an action plan and the subsequent launch of a staged approach, the Court launched various initiatives to shift its files to a digital format. It executed its strategy methodically, with input from various stakeholders.
AusFC took a truly visionary approach, being an early leader and adopter of digitization and paperless judicial service delivery. Announced in 2010, its Digital Strategy contemplated a completely paperless Court. Today, a decade after implementing its digital project in 2014, Australia’s justice system continues to benefit from AusFC’ prescient planning and pre-pandemic pivot.
Using the AusFC as a reference point, I assess findings gleaned through meetings with members of the legal profession, judiciary, and professors in Australia, Singapore, and Canada. The Report also considers literature in the area of the judiciary and technology. I focus on the approaches of the AusFC, other innovative jurisdictions, as well as the Canadian Court. I also consider the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on access to justice. Finally, having undertaken this comparative analysis, I provide 30 recommendations that Canadian Courts should consider incorporating technologies and innovations, which I illustrate using five case studies at the Federal Court to provide concrete examples of how modernization and adaptation can benefit the administration of justice.
This report concludes by noting that, with the pandemic behind us, and having benefited from cross-industry digitization, there are no longer excuses to remain mired in legacy systems. Ultimately, any challenges to reforming aging systems, whether due to time, money, or pure inconvenience and inertia, are superseded by the efficiencies, cost savings, and benefits that ensue to all users of the system – from judges to lawyers to litigants to the general public – just as was experienced by Australia, and will be described in the process they undertook from 2010. Fortunately, many of the changes they have implemented are now far more accessible through advances in technology than they were 15 years ago.
About the author
The Honourable Alan S. Diner
Justice of the Federal Court
Justice Diner received his LL.B. and LL.M. from Osgoode Hall Law School. He was called to the Bars of Ontario and New York, and was certified as a Specialist in Immigration Law by the Law Society of Ontario in 2013. Justice Diner headed the Canadian immigration practice at a large international law firm, and was recognized in peer-reviewed services such as Who’s Who, Lexpert, and Martindale Hubbell. He practiced in other areas of administrative law with two other leading firms in Toronto.
Prior roles included managing the establishment of Ontario’s Provincial Nominee Program, and other public sector work. He served as a law clerk to Justice James K. Hugessen at the Federal Court of Appeal.
Before being appointed the Federal Court on June 13, 2014, he was also active in community service including sitting on boards, and assisting with pro- bono initiatives, and was recognized for these activities through a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal, awards from industry associations and other organizations. He continues to be involved with members of the community through his Liaison Committee work at the Federal Court, particularly in the areas of immigration and technology.