Digitalization of Justice: the CRT Claims Process

by Matilde Serena

The Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) is Canada’s first online tribunal and is part of the British Columbia public justice system. The ultimate goal of the CRT is to offer accessible and affordable ways to resolve civil law disputes without the need for a lawyer or of attending a physical court hearing. The CRT ensures that its dispute resolution services are timely, flexible, accessible, affordable and efficient. The CRT qualifies as an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal and operates under the authority of the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act 2012. The CRT provides detailed legal information, self-help tools, and a dispute resolution process. Although the CRT is meant to encourage people to speak up for themselves, they can ask permission to obtain representation from a lawyer. The CRT relies on anonymous feedback from CRT participants to continuously improve. Participants can rate their experience, and the results of feedback collection are published monthly on a blog. According to the Participation Satisfaction Survey dated October 2022, 94% of the participants felt that the CRT treated them fairly throughout the process and 82% would recommend it to others. This innovative legal tool paves the way for the following questions: What does the CRT process entail? What are its advantages, if any? What are its disadvantages, if any?

As a starting point, it shall be noted that the CRT process is only suitable for a limited set of civil claims, namely (1) vehicle accidents (2) small claims (3) strata property (4) societies and cooperatives. The broadest category is the second one, namely small claims. It must be noted that the CRT does not have jurisdiction over harassment, slander, defamation or division of family property. This phrase indicates claims up to 5000 Canadian Dollars about sales, loans, personal property, contracts, roommates, pets and more. The CRT claims process is composed of four steps, namely (1) apply or respond (2) negotiation (3) facilitation (4) CRT decision.

Firstly, users can access free legal information tools by getting started with Solution Explorer. This would allow them to bring about a claim or respond to a claim made against them.

Secondly, through the platform, users can engage in secure and confidential negotiations and discuss the issues in the claim to finally reach an agreement.

Thirdly, in case the parties are unable to autonomously reach an agreement, a CRT case manager will mediate. The agreement reached at the facilitation stage has the binding force of an enforceable order.

Finally, in case parties failed to find common grounds during negotiation and facilitation, an independent tribunal member of the CRT will rule the dispute. This ruling is enforceable as any other court order.

As to the CRT advantages, participants in the October 2022 survey reported that they liked being able to initiate and finalize the proceedings entirely online and being able to address legal issues without the costs and complexities of going to a physical court. Furthermore, participants particularly appreciate the legal professionals working with CRT. For instance, comments report that these legal professionals give structure to the settlement discussions and are helpful throughout the entire process. Additionally, during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, the CRT was pivotal in providing remote legal aid and proved itself to be a versatile and effective dispute-resolution mechanism. The CRT is able to cut considerably the costs of hiring experts to conduct negotiations and arbitrations, together with travelling expenses.

Moving on to criticism, selected comments of CRT participants report that there is still room for improvement.For instance, users demanded a clearer explanation of the process, faster decisions and more process information in the context of time extensions. At the very first stage of the creation of the CRT, the legal community voiced fundamental concerns as to the possibility of courts being replaced by “robojustice”. There is an underlying assumption that the CRT relies on algorithms and avatars to rule on disputes. In fact, this is not the case. CRT’s decisions are based on a combination of Artificial Intelligence and skilled legal professionals. On the one hand, the Solution Explorer uses Artificial Intelligence to provide legal information and tools tailored to each specific claim. On the other hand, the facilitation and adjudication phases are led by legal professionals. As an additional remark, some legal scholars and practitioners pointed out that body language and direct interaction between parties is an essential component that is undermined by the use of digital dispute-resolution mechanisms. However, studies on distance mediation suggest that services such as the CRT are favourably comparable to in-person mediation in terms of the number of settlements, participants’ feedback and efficacy.

To conclude, this short essay presents arguments in favour of considering the CRT an innovative service capable of easing the way of solving civil law disputes. The CRT makes arbitration more accessible by eliminating travel barriers and excessive expenses for the obtainment of legal aid. Criticism has been found unreasonable and rooted in the fear that technology will somehow replace lawyer. This has been proven not to be the case. De facto, the CRT embodies a successful combination of human work by skilled legal professionals and Artificial Intelligence.

Sources:

Civil Resolution Tribunal, ‘About the CRT’ (Civilresolutionbc.ca, 2023) <https://civilresolutionbc.ca/about-the-crt/> accessed 21 January 2023.

Civil Resolution Tribunal, ‘CRT Blog’ (Civilresolutionbc.ca, 2023) <https://civilresolutionbc.ca/blog/> accessed 21 January 2023.

Civil Resolution Tribunal, ‘Participant Satisfaction Survey - October 2022’ (Civilresolutionbc.ca, 4 November 2022) < https://civilresolutionbc.ca/blog/participant-satisfaction-survey-october-2022/> accessed 21 January 2023.

Civil Resolution Tribunal, ‘Solution Explorer, Small Claims’ (Civilresolutionbc.ca, 2023) <https://civilresolutionbc.ca/solution-explorer/small-claims/> accessed 21 January 2023.

Civil Resolution Tribunal, ‘2021/2022 Annual Report Covering the period April 1, 2021 through March 31, 2022’ (2022) <https://civilresolutionbc.ca/wp-content/uploads/CRT-Annual-Report-2021-2022.pdf> accessed 21 January 2023.

S. Salter, ‘Online dispute resolution and justice system integration: British Columbia’s Civil Resolution Tribunal’ [2017] Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice, 34 1.