Supreme Court of Canada: 2016 in Numbers

The Court.ca, the blog of the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, has published a statistical overview of the decisions the Supreme Court of Canada delivered in 2016:

"2016 was a fairly quiet year for the Supreme Court.  In total, 60 appeals were decided through 55 individually indexed reasons for judgment.  Some appeals were heard and decided together, accounting for the difference between appeals heard and judgments rendered. Of those 55 reasons, 12 were given orally."

"The number of reasons released in 2016 is down from the 65 reasons given in 2016 (12 orally), and the 76 given in 2014 (21 orally).  Indeed, last year’s activity continues a general downward trend in the number of decisions released annually.  There are many reasons that may help explain this, including an increasing complexity of legal questions at issue before the Supreme Court."

The article looks at applications for leave to appeal, the disposition of the cases heard, the number of unanimous vs. split decisions, the length of the Court's judgments, and also offers stats for each judge.