Dr Donald J Netolitzky KC

I'm an independent hobbyist investigator and commentator with an “unlaw” focus. I’m not really interested in law, legal theory, etc. Methodologically, I’m a microbiologist who studies law-related things. I measure court processes and activities, and track pseudolaw phenomena. I engage in data-driven research using science-based investigation and analysis. Little is known on how Canadian courts truly operate. My studies quantify Canadian appellate litigation, including the controversial SRL phenomenon. I also investigate anti-authority false-law pseudolaw phenomena, Canadian pseudolaw groups and their beliefs, and how pseudolaw is embedded in the junkheap of information sociologists call the “cultic milieu”. I used to be an Alberta Court of King's Bench staff lawyer, the “Complex Litigant Management Counsel”, who assisted management of problem litigants and litigation. Any of my often cranky statements and publications are my own opinion and perspective, and not that of my former workplace, its personnel, and judges. Most of my published research is archived on ResearchGate, if you are curious (researchgate.net/profile/Donald…). Oh yeah, and I’m an unrepentant weirdo. It kind of leaks through, sometimes. (Fursona art courtesy of brightkarma - furaffinity.net/view/58083450/).

If you study pseudolaw for as long as I have it’s easy to forget that pseudolaw really is law, beyond the red ink fingerprint and all capitals STRAWMAN bullshit. A recent Alberta tribunal decision illustrates that. The Alberta Land & Property Rights Tribunal deals with disagreements in relation to land use. That usually means between landowners and mineral, oil, and gas producers. You see, land interests above and below ground are usually separate. When gas company X purchases rights to extract natural gas from parcel A, that’s probably not a contract with the farmer/rancher Y who owns the surface rights to parcel A. When company X enters parcel A (on the surface) it will pay money to Y for that activity. It’s a kind of easement. Y doesn’t get a say, really. And let’s just observe there’s a lot of disagreements on these processes, since Farmer Y often complains that Corporation X is sloppy or excessive on the surface, causing harm, or just that this kind of forced easement should result in more money. Enter the AL&PRT. Its function is to determine whether the surface rights owner should receive more or less when amounts get in dispute. Now, I’m simplifying this a lot, but that’s the gist of this dispute. Rally Canada Resources obtained the rights to develop the minerals under property owned by Etty Farms. Rally unilaterally set terms for reduced payment. Etty complained, but took the money anyways because it’s the Vader kind of thing: “I have altered the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.” But Etty went to the AL&PRT, which pulled out Alberta pseudolaw case law – including Meads v Meads of course - to tell Rally to stop being dinks. And that led to the passage reproduced below. And it turns out that not only had Rally foisted a reduced payment on Etty, it also then stopped paying entirely. Really being dinks. So this is a helpful reminder. Pseudolaw is often about magical stuff that has little to no relation to real rights or, for that matter, reality. But sometimes there are actually principles of law involved. One of the benefits I had of studying pseudolaw all those years is every so often I had to pause, step back, and start digging through real law, often foundational principles, to understand where the pseudolaw adherent went off track. In that way studying pseudolaw is a very powerful educational tool, since it helps build a broader context of the overall integration and operation of law as a whole. (I also think that Chairman McRory was having some fun jabbing the resource company for operating in an improper way, not really any different from the pseudolaw guy who declares he doesn’t have to pay his mortgage because money doesn't exist – prove that otherwise, bank!) (To be fair, Rally didn’t try to pay up its expenses with an ounce of silver. So there’s that tick mark in its credit column.) Full decision is here: Etty Farms Ltd v Rally Canada Resources Ltd, 2026 ABLPRT 349 - canlii.ca/t/kl371 Nice clean piece of work.

@RuleofLawCanada You're absolutely correct. Pre-hearing preparation and submissions are what decide many legal proceedings. Some litigators like to think the drama and presentation of an argument is influential, but in my experience judges are a rather jaded bunch.

@DNetolitzky Easy and luck isn't what is required but thanks for your well wishes. I'm just filling in the blanks in my ongoing research project.

Math is hard. And when you’re a lawyer, apparently it can be very, very hard. Math’s complexities, in this case probability, has led to an Ontario Court of Appeal decision with a really snide undertone. Personally as an old microbiologist I loved it. So before we get into the data I should make full disclosure. My doctorate is in microbiology and during my career in the sciences I frequently was involved in vaccine development projects. FOR THE MILITARY!!! *spooky fiendish sounds* So, am I a “pro-vaxxer”? Well, yes. I’m also pro-science, pro-data, and believe that law and reality ought to align. But that alignment is sketchy at best. Another long narrative, for another day. *sigh* Ok, to the judgment and math. The ONCA recently punted a lawsuit where a parent of a 17-year old male (Hartman) died in 2021 after taking the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Father sues, alleging Canada’s vaccine approval process was a big lie. Lawsuit fails in a quite unusual way. Now, continuing that background of mine. Vaccines are an effective technology, remarkably so. But like everything biological/medical, sometimes things go awry. This is the cost of doing business, and the ONCA said that in a much lengthier manner. But ... what’s fun for me was the mathematical failure of this lawsuit and that led to the statement of claim being tossed in a quite unusual manner. Permit me to explain. There are two broad ways to axe a lawsuit pre-trial: (1) “Striking out” – the court reviews the document that starts a lawsuit and assuming everything in there is correct and true, there still is no basis for a lawsuit. For example, a lawsuit started in a court that has no jurisdiction could be struck out. It’s hopeless. Just read it. (2) “Summary judgment” – both parties submit evidence of their claims in a documentary (affidavit) format, and the evidence is so overwhelming in favour of one side that it’s not proportionate to continue the lawsuit. You can think of striking out as meaning there is no lawsuit according to the rules of law, but in summary judgment there could be a legal basis to sue, but the facts are so hopelessly one-sided that there is no basis to go to a trial, that would just be a waste. Law defect versus fact defect. In the case of the Hartman lawsuit, the ONCA kicked the action as striking out, but on the basis of facts. Yes. Put another way, what Hartman argued was factually wrong. As in he himself cited data that proved the lawsuit was baseless. The paragraphs reproduced below show the issue. 4.0% of the population who did not get the vaccine got COVID. 0.4% of the population who were vaccinated contracted the virus and exhibited symptoms. Hartman argued that means there was only a 3.6% improvement in outcomes where a person was vaccinated. As the ONCA points out, this is basic math. And wrong. You don’t subtract the two numbers. You divide them. In a population of 1,000, the placebo control population had 40 persons develop COVID-19 symptoms. With vaccines, 4 in 1,000. A ten-fold improvement. *facepaw* This is so freaking basic. So, in Hartman’s lawsuit, the facts he relied on, that supposedly proved the vaccine wasn’t any good, those facts demonstrated a 10 fold improvement in disease management outcomes. And the ONCA’s response is that means this is a “strike out” scenario. Canada didn’t need to introduce evidence the Pfizer vaccine worked. Hartman proved the point. Or I guess you could say in law a ten-fold improvement in outcomes doesn’t mean a product is defective. Here’s the ONCA judgment: Hartman v Canada (Attorney General), 2026 ONCA 270 - canlii.ca/t/kkf97

It's kind of infamous in vaccine research circles that some of the best immunological protection isn't that physically comfortable. My memory is the original lyme disease vaccine was basically ground-up infected ticks dosed in formaldehyde or something like that which was then directly injected. I never had that vaccination. But I knew people who had. Let's just say the experience was a very, very bad time. But! Protection was exceptional! All said, marketplace vaccines are pretty amazing. Watching the pandemic in 2019-2020 I was not surprised that we had successful vaccines emerge in pretty short order. What stunned me was that almost every vaccine project succeeded with a via product. Remarkable. Hope your wife had a full recovery.

@DNetolitzky My wife was hospitalized for several weeks following her COVID vaccine. My anti vax colleagues were quick to use her situation to support their social media based beliefs. My wife is an extremely well educated HCW and she insisted that our son be vaccinated as soon as possible.

@RuleofLawCanada Good luck! You'll never see me say litigation or anything court-related is easy.

@DNetolitzky I had my first strike test last month, still have not got the decision yet but the opposing lawyer ended by complaining to the judge about the fundamental unfairness that, I cited precedents and provided argument, not to mention that my affidavit proved the fraud I was alleging.

Thanks for highlighting this article. Interestingly, Canadian law-related journals are usually peer-reviewed in a classic sense, including university law faculty "law reviews". Now, I'm not saying that solves all issues. There's the problem of legal academics being debaters rather than data analysts. As an old bioscientist that makes law peer review a pretty painful process at times.

Law reviews aren't peer-reviewed, but the academy treats their placements as markers of scholarly merit. Sandler and Katz on the prestige economy of legal scholarship — reputation and brand often matter more than substantive judgment. legaltheoryblog.com/?p=111817

@dripping_roast Well, at least this time I didn't sound too goofy...

Yes and no. Pseudolaw adherents elevate contract law as being the basis of pretty much everything, so they view almost any interpersonal interaction as a contract. They frame both their own and others positions in that way. A common example is the idea of "foisting" legal obligations by a contract offer that you accept if you don't explicitly reject it. That's not how contracts work, but they have this "silence means consent" idea that runs through their schemes. Let's say you get in a car collision with one of these individuals, they might give you a "contract offer" that says you have 24 hours to prove you weren't drunk or distracted, and if you fail that, then the pseudolaw adherent can go to a notary and obtain a supposedly binding judgment you have to pay $10 million. Now, in their world, you could do the same thing back. How does that manifest in the real world? That's kind of hard to say, because these people rarely interact with each other in a court-based sense. And they're total jerks. Oh, the "silence means consent" concept? Yeah they do apply that in sexual interactions. With very, very ugly results.

@DNetolitzky @DanNeidle So they would have no objection if the rest of us followed the same logic..?? from the little I've seen/read sovcits seem to claim immunity from what they don't want, and cover for what they do.. (nothing new there then.) e.g. traffic law until someone drives/travels into them..

Someone tried to claim they owned the copyright in Canadian tax legislation and so couldn’t be taxed…. If, like me, you find this stuff hypnotically fascinating, do consider following @DNetolitzky

Almost certainly in a regular court for tort injury. You see, it's not that these people don't believe in law. They do, intensely. What's different about them is they believe in a different legal rule set than the majority. A rule set they chose. Pseudolaw adherents use regular courts for regular purposes. Most pseudolaw isn't directed to "people on people" interactions, but those with government and institutions. Think of it as a kind of levelling the playfield approach, where rules are changed to shift authority to the individual. (In theory.) Now, what would possibly surprise you is the monetary damages sought in the normal court. They have this concept that you can unilaterally assign penalty "fee schedule" arrangements. Like, for every time someone touches me, I get $100,000.

@DanNeidle @DNetolitzky Not suggesting it for a moment.. But if you punched a sovereign citizen for being an idiot. Where would they sue you..??

@james1071 @DanNeidle Do you have to observe those particles so they collapse out of superposition into a defined state first? A kind of Schrodinger's un-uncertainty tax?

@DanNeidle @DNetolitzky I own copyright to the laws of physics. Don't ask me how, but it involved a good poker hand and Mr Richard Fineman not having any cash on him. So, gravity does not apply, Mr Needle. Strong and weak, I collect royalties on every 10 to the 60 particles in the universe.

One of the neat debates in the burgeoning pseudolaw studies world is whether these people are nuts or not. The old rule was no. This is a kind of political theatre with weird language. But now mental health professionals are starting to re-evaluate things like pseudolaw, the QAnon phenomenon, anti-vaxxing, as a form of collective delusion, "Extreme Overvalued Beliefs". Or we could just treat this as a form of religion which I'm increasingly favouring, too.

@DanNeidle @DNetolitzky This is not case for a tax expert This is a case for a mental health professional..

@DanNeidle Dan, thank you kindly for that endorsement! And as I've said previously, kudos to you for being one of the very few tracking what is going on in the UK in this weird domain. Your reports are invaluable.

@BrianChutskoff Honestly, pseudolaw problem litigation is so easy to slap down given the developed jurisprudence in Canada. It's a resource waste, but the ones who experience the greatest harm are the pseudolaw litigants themselves. But they're not usually terribly sympathetic individuals.

@DNetolitzky POOF 💨 There goes the Income Tax Act. It would be amusing, BUT FOR, the immense waste of scarce judicial resources (& thereby my taxpayer, pension only, money) expended to deal with this flagrant Abuse of Process 😡 Bravo Zulu for your willingness to continue to expose this 💩

“The appellant’s letter is nonsense.” Tax Court of Canada Justice Derksen might be accused of understatement. Go on. Read it. But it's magic nonsense. That letter includes something so rare, so precious, that I curled up in a ball and giggled. It's pseudolaw that is new. Well, not without antecedent. But I'd never thought of this combination. Sure, most of the letter is ancient and boring Strawman Theory, names in capitals or with magic spelling. I am not "a PERSON", but a living man. Yawn. Bleh. Then there's this: ... what you are doing is committing copyright infringement, Norman Traversy owns the copyrights to the Canada Income Tax Act. Errr... wut? Now, it’s an ancient pseudolaw tactic that you claim copyright or trademark in your own name, and then when a government or bank writes you, you demand payment of $100,000 or so on for each instance of your name for copyright infringement. Same if someone sues you. The Statement of Claim is a breach of copyright. But ... copyright in legislation? How does that work? Copyright belongs to an author/creator, or to whomever the author/creator sold copyright. And who is Norman Traversy? Maybe he was some government official or minister? Nope. He’s a pseudolaw personality (for example see MacKinnon v Canada (Attorney General), 2025 FC 201) who is hooked in with the fake Indigenous groups and courts that have been expanding in Canada (for example see R v Pickton, 2020 BCSC 1200) with COVID-19 pandemic mitigation resistance angles. So, we have someone who arbitrarily seems to have claimed copyright in legislation, and - presumably - that then means no one can make reference to or use legislation in some way, so poof! There goes the Income Tax Act. Naturally I was intrigued. That led down two paths. First, what is the copyright status of things created/written by the Canadian government. Why, that’s specifically covered in the Copyright Act, RSC 1985, c C-42, Part -1, section 12: 12 Without prejudice to any rights or privileges of the Crown, where any work is, or has been, prepared or published by or under the direction or control of Her Majesty or any government department, the copyright in the work shall, subject to any agreement with the author, belong to Her Majesty and in that case shall continue for the remainder of the calendar year of the first publication of the work and for a period of fifty years following the end of that calendar year. So, copyright in all legislation automatically vests with Canada. Norman is an interloper! Or, since the first Canadian Income Tax Act (then the Income Tax War Act) dates to 1917, then the ITA is public domain. But that’s no basis for Norman to claim copyright. But it gets better. I mused ... what if Norman had gone to the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and started registering copyright in legislation. You see, there isn’t much screening of filing a copyright registration, unlike trademarks and patents which are an involved process. Quick search on the CIPO copyright engine and ... oh dear. There are a set of copyright registrations for Norman Traversy: 1173152 - Justice for Canada 1194165 - Freedom Convoy, The Freedom Convoy 1221632 - Dreadnaught 1230302 - Bill C-15: An Act Respecting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples No Income Tax Act. But Traversy does seem to have seized copyright (on paper) of the legislation that implements the often-discussed UNDRIP Treaty. In reality this is meaningless, because that legislation dates to 2021, so within the 50-year absolute copyright period. Still - comical and neat! What does it mean, though, pseudolegally, that Traversy has copyright? No idea. Back to the Justice Derksen decision. This relates to tax matters that date to the mid 2000s. The taxpayer, Jeffrey Curran, claimed tax credits relating to mining and mineral development expenses. Until 2025 that litigation inched along in the Tax Court of Canada as a group of appeals with a lead case to decide the matter. Pretty typical of how the TCC works. It is cost and resource effective to run a small subset or single lead case then apply the result to a cluster of largely identical tax disputes. But the test cases were discontinued. Ultimately almost all were settled in some manner. Curran is an exception. Curran had a lawyer who withdrew in 2025, and afterwards Curran represented himself. I’ll let Justice Derkman continue the narrative: ... Now on his own, the appellant had choices to make. And the appellant made bad ones. Instead of attending the examination for discovery that the Crown had scheduled for December 3, 2025, to be held virtually and on a date that the appellant had confirmed was suitable, the appellant adopted a pseudo-legal stance. ... The appellant fails to appreciate that he commenced this proceeding, not the Crown. It was his appeal to prosecute. He has not done so. Although this Court should be slow to dismiss an appeal for want of prosecution, or for failing to attend an examination for discovery—and especially where there are extenuating circumstances—a slow pace is not warranted here. Sometimes pseudo-legal theorists require a swift and decisive response. For this reason, and as discussed further below, the appellant’s appeal will be dismissed. Curran sent the attached letter, with a fingerprint in red ink. But Canadian courts are not exactly enthused about these ideas: ... As Associate Chief Justice Rooke stated in Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, Courts will not tolerate pseudo-legal arguments, misconduct, or tactics. Such behaviour is an abuse of process ... ... Too much ink has been spilled on pseudo-legal arguments, or what are commonly referred to as “organized pseudo-legal commercial arguments.” ... The appellant made a calculated decision by sending his letter dated November 24, 2025, to counsel for the Crown. He even made the effort to send it by registered mail and then followed up to confirm delivery. I have no reason to believe—and especially now that at least five months have since passed—that the appellant intends to correct course. Instead, the appellant has disengaged from his appeal. His actions amount to a deliberate abuse of the Court’s process. And this is not a time for second or third chances. ... In the circumstances, I am exercising my discretion and will dismiss the appellant’s appeal. Costs are awarded to the Crown, and payable by the appellant, in the fixed amount of $1,500. FAFO. And that, my friends, is how you deal with pseudolaw litigation. Though I do disagree in a small way. I like spilling ink about pseudolaw. Somebody has to here in Canada. But I quite understand how courts are thoroughly sick of it. Here’s the judgment: Curran v. The King, 2026 TCC 79 - canlii.ca/t/kkx78 It's classy.

I'm usually coy about my political opinions. Here's an exception. I think lawyers operating as a self-regulating, self-administering monopoly in Canada is a bad thing. Thankfully, the Chief Justice of the British Columbia Supreme Court doesn't entirely disagree with me. A couple weeks ago Chief Justice Skolrood ruled that the British Columbia government did not act unconstitutionally when it passed legislation that created a new administrative entity that would regulate professions who engage in law stuff, like lawyers, notaries, and any other new category of worker like paralegals or other types of legal representatives and so on. Here’s how the court described the change: “A central element of Bill 21 is the elimination of self-governance and self-regulation of lawyers by a board comprised of a majority of elected lawyers.” So, for those who didn’t know: (1) In most of Canada lawyers are regulated by a “law society”. (2) The only people who are members of a law society are lawyers. (3) Lawyers elect the lawyers who will govern and set rules for lawyers, usually called “benchers”. This makes the institution “democratic”. *peals of fiendish shrieking* (4) The law society makes up the rules on what lawyers can and cannot do. (5) If a lawyer does a bad thingie as defined by the law society (could be law, might be something else), then the law society runs disciplinary tribunals that decide what happens to the lawyer. These operations are very court-like, highly formal. Lawyers judge the lawyers. (6) Lawyers collectively contribute money to operate insurance schemes. When a lawyer does a bad lawyering thingie then the injured individual gets paid an award. For example, if a lawyer stole your payment for a house purchase, the insurance fund would cover that. Lawyers as a whole insure the public against bad lawyering. That also means in a sense that lawyers get punished collectively when one of them does bad lawyering stuff. Lawyers explain all this works fine because lawyers, via their law societies, act “in the public interest”. I leave it up to the reader whether they agree. Back in the old-old days in England it was courts who decided who is a lawyer, and who disciplined lawyers. In theory that authority still exists in Canada, because courts still have an inherent jurisdiction to determine whether a person is a suitable in-court representative or not. That authority is practically never used to kick a lawyer out of a courtroom, however. The exclusion power is functionally for layperson representatives. Similarly, there are rules that allow a court to fine a lawyer for antics, however those rules are basically a fiction, since the usual practice is courts refer bad lawyering to the local law society for discipline. Which in my opinion is rather peculiar. Law societies are operated by lawyers. Why would they care about the function of courts? Anyways, in Canada nobody seems to argue that it’s an unwritten part of the Constitution (Charter s 7, that wellspring of so much stuff) that there is an “independent bar”. What does that mean? Basically, it’s that lawyers can argue whatever they want and even though that might annoy or dismay governments and other authorities, tough. Hands off when it comes to lawyers. They’re special, and must somehow be shielded and allowed to engage in whatever they like, so that there’s a lawyer to stand beside you when you stick it to The Man. Now the trend in Canada is that law societies are pushing to be entirely outside government control. “Independent” then would mean only lawyers can ever set rules, discipline, admit or deny lawyer, etc. The argument is that should be a constitutional principle, that lawyers must be self-governing and self-regulating. In effect, lawyers would become a separate branch of government, in a way on equal status as legislatures, executive, and courts. I’m not going to go espouse at great length. I think the idea of a for-profit trade that holds a monopoly on legal services and appearing in courts, that has its own rules and courts for discipline and control, its own requirements on education and qualification ... I don’t think that’s in the public’s interest. Not saying lawyers are terrible people. But they are not a publicly operated for-cost service. This is not a socialized legal apparatus, parallel to socialized medicine. Lawyers are engaged in a business activity. One that can lead to lots and lots of money. In any case, the Law Society of British Columbia reacted very negatively when the BC government decided to shift administration of lawyers into a different context where lawyers aren’t solely in charge of their own affairs. Being lawyers, they sued, claiming lawyers have a constitutional right to be “self-governing and self-regulating”, because that is what “an independent bar” means. Which raises all kinds of neat questions about at what point the provinces lost their section 92 Constitutional authority to regulate the practice of law, and how lawyers took over that role as a separate branch of government? In any case, Chief Justice Skolrood ruled that “independence” does not necessarily mean self-governance and self-regulation. A monopoly is the less polite term. That word not present in the judgment. Lawyers can be independent and zealous in other administrative structures. Which is no surprise, because as I understand it, Canada is the weird country in the Commonwealth where lawyers have gone the furthest in walling themselves off into an island institution and population all their own. In fact, a couple years ago I had quite a time explaining to academics from several other Commonwealth countries just how far things had gone in Canada. They were "startled". As you guessed, I’m pleased with the BCSC ruling. But the outcome is most definitely going to be appealed up the Supreme Court of Canada, and what happens there? Who knows. I'm surprised but not surprised that this question hasn't drawn more attention from the public. But most of us at some point will interact with lawyers. And the idea of them occupying a proverbial fortress of solitude I think sits badly with most Canadians. I can only speak for myself, but I am skeptical the legal profession truly serves “the public interest”. Law is a business. And potentially a very profitable one. Go on. Try and find a pro bono lawyer. The full judgment is here: Law Society of British Columbia v British Columbia (Attorney General), 2026 BCSC 779 - canlii.ca/t/kkn2g It's not short.

Dr. Chutskoff, First, thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate those. Concerning your litigation at ABQB (as it was). Because I was employed by ABQB at the time I'm really limited in what I can say about it - about the outcome and analysis. Even more importantly, I can't disagree with the approach and analysis because the ABCA confirmed the ABQB decision. Courts dictate reality, after all. So even if I disagreed with what happened - not saying one way or another - this is an instance whether the matter is settled by "a higher authority". But I've been thinking much over the years about how courts manage problematic litigation, and so I believe it's best if I just let my publications speak for themselves. When I get them published. *rolling eyes* Let's just say I'm finding academic peer reviewers are very unfriendly.

@DNetolitzky Your scholarship on #PseudolawLitigation benefits Courts worldwide. Your scholarship on some SRL litigation as vexatious & an abuse of process is controversial, in particular when Judges have ruled on their “on their own motion/evidence” Please discuss: canlii.org/en/ab/abqb/doc…

I draw flak for saying that self-represented litigants (SRLs) are a privileged category in Canadian law. Not everyone is equal before the Courts. The Supreme Court of Canada just emphasized that. In Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia the SCC invented a new tort, "intimate partner violence". I'm not going to talk much about that, but as a super-quick summary, IPV is a basis for one partner in a relationship claims for injury and money compensation where the other partner took coercive control of the intimate relationship that impeded the activities and dignity of the targeted partner. I won’t try to express the scope of what that means. The majority decision is a honking 249 paragraphs. Let’s just say the majority decision by Justice Kasirer casts a very broad net to include everything from physical violence, to sexual demands, to financial control, to giving the other partner “the silent treatment”. This is “violence”. Is this a good idea or not? I dunno - not my field. Some family subject lawyers are going to get filthy rich off litigating these claims though. I could talk about the implications of this kind of personal injury on certain cultural subcommunities but ... I’m not going to. There’s something else that caught my attention. The way this litigation developed is unusual. The successful divorcing partner was self-represented in most of the trial proceeding. So this is an instance of a big win by an SRL over a represented party, which is interesting. But what is even more noteworthy is the SRL did not argue the new tort of IPV exists, but did raise claims she had been injured by her (admittedly and unpleasantly) abusive spouse. Instead, the judge hearing the trial basically decided on her own to raise this issue, and created the IPV tort issues. That is really quite unusual, because the usual rule in common law jurisdictions like Canada is that the litigants “own” the lawsuit. They set the issues, the facts, and the judge is basically a sphinx who sits and listens, then with a flourish and legal reasons announces the winner. Here, the judge took on an enlarged role, creating a new issue, and then defining a novel class of tort law. That’s normally forbidden, “descending into the arena from the bench and advocating for the self-represented litigant”, a passage from the three dissenting judges who concluded this litigation was improper, and the appeal was inappropriate and unfair as a result. But the majority decision - and the new rule in Canada - is that judges have a much broader potential role with SRLs. Here’s the critical paragraph (62) cut down for clarity: The fact that [the wife] was self-represented provides additional context to understanding how the trial proceeded. ... family law rules provide judges with the flexibility “to deal with cases justly” through “active management of cases” ... which may include “the raising of substantive and evidentiary issues” ... It is of course true that “[a] self-represented party cannot expect special treatment if they chose to represent themselves” ... The trial judge underscored that [the wife] “must be held to the same standard as a party represented at trial” ... Nevertheless, judges presiding over family law matters must be alive to barriers that self-represented litigants face, particularly where domestic violence is alleged ... In this context where judges are called on to take “a practical and principled approach to pleadings”, the emphasis on substance over form takes on particular significance ... The trial judge plainly acted within her authority, with due sensitivity to [the wife’s] status as a self-represented litigant in a family law proceeding, and [the husband] suffered no prejudice associated with what he alleged as procedural unfairness. So after subtracting the kind of wishy-washy provisos, as I read this paragraph, the fact the wife and successful party was an SRL meant that a judge had the right, if not the obligation, to take control of the proceeding, introduce new issues, invent new law, and award a large sum on that basis ($150K, cut down to $100 on appeal). And the dissenting three judges point and bounce around furiously that this isn’t the rules. And they’re right. This is pretty dramatic development. According to the new standard, when dealing with an SRL judges have an expanded authority to intervene, point the litigation in a new direction, and develop law and issues that were never argued by the parties. The trigger? That one party was vulnerable and self-represented. Now, as the passage I quoted shows, this expanded role of the judge as owner of the litigation is positioned in a family context. But ... shouldn’t this also apply anywhere an SRL is disadvantaged? A refugee with limited resources and language barriers? A self-represented criminal accused? A person with psychiatric issues? Maybe. So, previously the SCC has “endorsed” something called the “Statement of Principles on Self-represented Litigants and Accused Persons” (Canadian Judicial Council, 2006) that said that deadlines do not really apply to SRLs, and that SRLs should not be as strictly required to follow procedure and form, for example: “Judges should ensure that procedural and evidentiary rules are not used to unjustly hinder the legal interests of self-represented persons.” SRL status gives special treatment. And now the SCC has perhaps made it a requirement or obligation for trial judges to re-direct litigation outside the parameters set by the parties, where an SRL is disadvantaged. Interesting. The full decision is here: Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia, 2026 SCC 16 - canlii.ca/t/kkzk1

@RuleofLawCanada If they were pseudolaw users they'd send out documents that say by not rejecting my unilateral declaration under natural law that I am a begonia, you accept that and are legally required to pour Brawndo with electrolytes on me on demand. Yes, I really enjoyed Idiocracy.

what do you think @DNetolitzky, sovereign citizen arguments? I am whoever I think I could be and your facts mean nothing to me because I'm mentally ill? DS=5?

Oh crapola! I didn't notice until now that one of the co-counsel for the successful party at the SCC and ONCA is someone I knew decades and decades ago when we were weirdo subcultural types in Edmonton. Groovy. She was a smart and wonderfully strange person. Better times.

@DTSaskatoon That makes two of us. The problem is practically no-one is measuring courts and what they do. And ... well, there's the fun of discovering the unknown. As I said, old scientist.

@DNetolitzky Nothing beats a good puzzle! The law is interesting but I must admit that I prefer the predictability of numerical based puzzles.