Support service established for virtual courtrooms in Quebec

Law360 Canada (May 8, 2020, 12:47 PM EDT) -- For several weeks now, the Quebec Court of Appeal has been offering parties and counsel the possibility of presenting their motions before a judge alone by way of videoconference, in a “virtual courtroom” setting. As of May 25, using the same virtual model, the court will resume, on a regular basis, the hearing of appeals and motions presentable before a panel.

According to the court’s press release, in order to support users of the virtual courtrooms, the provincial Justice Ministry has set up a space when parties and counsel can familiarize themselves with videoconferences. They can use the space to connect to a virtual videoconference bridge where they can test their connection and ask questions in real-time to a technician about how to use the videoconferencing features of the WebRTC solution adopted by the court for its virtual courtrooms. This new service is available Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at this Internet address (meeting ID: 335169), or via conference call at 418-478-3293 or 514-335-1080 (meeting ID: 335169#).

The court added that parties and counsel are encouraged to use this service before participating in a virtual courtroom hearing before a judge alone or a panel of the court. The section on virtual courtrooms on the court’s website also contains additional information.