By Lauryn Kerr, CRT Legal Counsel
On April 1, 2019, the CRT will start resolving many motor vehicle accident (MVI) personal injury disputes in British Columbia. This will include determinations of whether an injury is a “minor injury”, disputes about accident benefits, and disputes about damages and fault up to $50,000.
This change will give British Columbians a modern and convenient way to access justice. To prepare for this change, we’ve updated the CRT Rules.
We conducted a public consultation in early 2019 on the changes to the CRT Rules. Public consultations are part of our commitment to build the CRT around the needs of people who will be using it. Thank you to everyone who sent us feedback!
We’ve updated our Rules page with the new rules that will come into force on April 1. We will be repealing our existing rules and replacing them with these new rules. In addition to adding new rules for our MVI jurisdiction, we also updated some of the existing rules, and reorganized the rules.
What are Rules?
Courts and tribunals usually have rules. Rules are a bit like a complete instruction guide. They can also restrict parties and the court or tribunal from doing certain things.
Under the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act, we’re required to have a set of rules. The CRT Rules help to make it a fair, transparent, and consistent forum for resolving disputes. The CRT Rules have been in place since we started accepting strata property disputes for resolution in July 2016.
What’s different about the CRT Rules?
The CRT Rules are set by the Tribunal Chair. But we think they belong to all British Columbians. Because of that, we want the rules to be as accessible and understandable as possible.
If you’re familiar with court rules, you’ll probably find the CRT’s rules to be shorter and simpler. We think long, complicated rules are just too confusing for most people to use. We’re trying to take a ‘less is more’ approach with our rules and focus on the information that will be most useful to people.
How will people use the CRT Rules?
If we’re being totally honest – we hope people using the CRT don’t actually have to read the CRT Rules. We try to build processes and guides that speak for themselves, and give you the information you need, when you need it. But when people need or want to read our complete rules, they are available.
As always, if you have questions or comments, please contact us.