On September 7th, the Court of Appeal for British Columbia dismissed an application to have part of its reasons redacted or to have the reasons withdrawn from the Court’s website.
The applicant believed that part of the reasons – released in 2004 – were harmful to his reputation, a problem he said was facilitated by internet search. The Court dismissed the application because redaction would offend the principle of finality. It held that redaction alone would effectively amount to an amendment of the Court’s (substantive) conclusions. (This is a non-obvious point of principle of some significance.) The Court also relied on the open courts principle, which it affirmed.
MacGougan v. Barraclough, 2017 BCCA 321 (CanLII).
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