Adequate Reasons -- Supreme Court of Canada

The issue of adequate reasons for judgment has been considered repeatedly by the Courts. It can raise issues in civil, criminal, family and administrative law.

Yesterday's Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Walker 2008 SCC 34 attempts to clarify the law. The decision, though arising in criminal law, is of broad application.

In summary, the parties are entitled to know why the judge decided as the judge decided. Reasons have to be sufficient to allow for appellant review -- moreover society generally has a right to proper reasons.

If justice is to be seen to be done the public has to be able to know why the judge decided one way or another.

That said, an appellate court is not given the power to intervene simply because it thinks the trial court did a poor job of expressing itself.

Reasons are sufficient if they are responsive to the case's live issues and the parties' key arguments. Their sufficiency should be measured not in the abstract, but as they respond to the substance of what was in issue.

Courts have to consider the nature of the case at trial -- often decisions are given orally immediately at the end of a hearing. In such cases the failure of the trial court to express the decision with elegance is not a basis for review so long as the live issues for trial are dealt with and the basis for the ruling is clear.

The Court held:

[19] Sheppard recognized a duty to give adequate reasons on a number of broad policy grounds. At the trial level, the reasons justify and explain the result. Reasons for judgment are the primary mechanism by which judges account to the parties and to the public for the decisions they render (para. 15). The losing party is entitled to know why he or she has lost. Informed consideration can be given to grounds for appeal. Interested members of the public can satisfy themselves that justice has been done, or not, as the case may be (para. 24). Trial courts, where the essential findings of facts and drawing of inferences are done, can only be held properly to account if the reasons for their adjudication are transparent and accessible to the public and to the appellate courts (para. 15). See also R. v. Burns, 1994 CanLII 127 (S.C.C.), [1994] 1 S.C.R. 656; R. v. R. (D.), 1996 CanLII 207 (S.C.C.), [1996] 2 S.C.R. 291, and R. v. Gagnon, 2006 SCC 17 (CanLII), [2006] 1 S.C.R. 621, 2006 SCC 17, at paras. 13, 14, 19 and 62. It is apparent that these considerations apply as much to acquittals as to convictions. Prosecutions call for a great expenditure of public resources, both human and material, and the Crown and the police, no less than the accused and the public generally, have a legitimate interest in knowing the reasons for the unsuccessful outcome.

[20] Equally, however, Sheppard holds that [t]he appellate court is not given the power to intervene simply because it thinks the trial court did a poor job of expressing itself (para. 26). Reasons are sufficient if they are responsive to the case's live issues and the parties' key arguments. Their sufficiency should be measured not in the abstract, but as they respond to the substance of what was in issue. The trial judge's duty is satisfied by reasons which are sufficient to serve the purpose for which the duty is imposed, i.e., a decision which, having regard to the particular circumstances of the case, is reasonably intelligible to the parties and provides the basis for meaningful appellate review of the correctness of the trial judge's decision (para. 55(8)). Moreover, [w]here it is plain from the record why an accused has been convicted or acquitted, and the absence or inadequacy of reasons provides no significant impediment to the exercise of the right of appeal, the appeal court will not on that account intervene (para. 46). The duty to give reasons should be given a functional and purposeful interpretation and the failure to live up to the duty does not provide a free-standing right of appeal or in itself confe[r] entitlement to appellate intervention (para. 53).
James Morton
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