News & Announcements

A profile on The Honourable Justice Anna Loparco, Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta.

On April 12, 2021, a new online search portal will be launched, allowing Albertans to submit a search request for civil actions in any Court of Queen's Bench location and receive the results by email. For further details, please refer to the full announcement.

Effective immediately, if you wish to serve a commencement document in a foreign country that is a Contracting State to the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, you must comply with the Hague Service Convention requirements. New reference material, including forms and instruction booklets have been made available on the Court site. For further details, please refer to the full announcement.

In order to facilitate the more timely processing of draft Orders submitted to the Court via email, counsel and parties are asked to send draft Orders in .doc or docx (ie., Microsoft Word) format in Justice Chambers and Family Chambers, and PDF format in Applications Judges' Chambers. For further details, please refer to the full announcement.

A Criminal Appearance Court (CAC) Adjournment Form is now available for Counsel and Court use. For further details, please refer to the full announcement.

Amendments to the Divorce Act (Canada) will come into force on March 1, 2021. Forms previously in use will not be accepted for filing after February 26, 2021. See full announcement for more information.

The Alberta Debtor Support Project ramps up existing pro bono legal resources, and also offers two new resources to assist Albertans struggling with debt. The Project website provides an overview of the resources available and offers a portal for lawyers, both active and retired, to volunteer to assist Albertans dealing with debt. Volunteers will receive detailed online training to meet the expected increased demand for assistance. The project hopes to partner with additional Approved Legal Service Providers throughout Alberta to encourage and train their volunteers. For more information, please refer to the full announcement.

It is now possible for counsel to file all materials in Civil and Family proceedings electronically, via email. However, in some locations, up to 50% of the materials received by the Court have been filed with the clerk, at the counter, on paper. For the time being, while the public health crisis persists, it is in the interests of public health – and in the interests of the health of Court staff as well as counsel, court runners, and any other individuals who may be required to file materials – that personal attendance at courthouses and filing queues be avoided. To that end, the Court is mandating that any material filed by counsel, in any civil or family proceeding, must be filed electronically, via email, per the directions set out in the December 11, 2020 Announcement from RCAS.

If you have been summonsed to attend jury selection, you may apply for an exemption to the requirement to attend jury selection if: you have health concerns that make you more vulnerable to COVID-19; or you live with or are required to provide care for an individual who has health concerns that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19. An exemption may be applied for by completing and returning the jury summons which was mailed to you to by the Clerk's Office. The instructions for doing so can be found in the package. ​ An online version of the Jury Summary Response form is available here: https://www.albertacourts.ca/qb/jury ​

Recent amendments to the Alberta Rules of Court have prescribed new forms of Affidavit of Applicant for Divorce (Form FL-23) and Affidavit of Applicants for Divorce (Joint) (Form FL-24) effective November 1, 2020. It is the responsibility of litigants or their counsel to ensure that, starting on November 1, 2020, they are fully complying with these new forms. However, to ensure continued access to justice for litigants, a grace period will be observed until January 1, 2021 before the requirement for compliance will be strictly enforced.