Divorce discussion. Credit: Green Liu/Unsplash
Vancouver/CMEDIA: The reported amendments to federal Divorce Act laws and rules and changes to the Supreme Court Family Rules on Dec. 1, 2024 will enable people to use both official languages in B.C. Supreme Court divorce matters.
French speaking people would be able to conduct their Divorce Act court proceedings in French, whereas previously they would have been required to privately hire an interpreter.
These changes would also allow people to file documents in either official language, both online and in person, at any court registry and can also have proceedings heard in French, have transcripts or orders prepared in French and give evidence in both official languages.
If they also make claims under the Divorce Act in the same case — called joint relief proceedings, Changes to the Family Rules would also allow the use of French for claims made under family law provincial legislation, most notably the Family Law Act.
Facilitatiing the use of French in joint relief proceedings eliminates the need to hold two separate hearings and trials, most often with identical parties, children and evidence or filing two sets of identical documents and presenting the same evidence twice.
The amendments also extend time limits for filing response documents to allow time for parties to translate documents and grant explicit authority for judges to manage bilingual files in judicial case conferences, case planning conferences and trial management conferences to help parties minimize delays.
This project has been supported by the Department of Justice Canada.
For more information about the French version of the Supreme Court Family Rules forms, visit: https://www2.qa.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/courthouse-services/documents-forms-records/court-forms/sup-family-forms-french-version
