Supreme Court sued over its refusal to translate decisions before 1970 into French [Video]

The office of the registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada was served with a legal notice on Friday by a Quebec civil rights group challenging the high court’s steadfast refusal to translate its historic decisions into French.

Droits collectifs Québec filed an application in Federal Court in Montreal after failing to get the registrar — which serves as the administrative body for the court — to translate the documents.

The lawsuit involves more than 6,000 decisions rendered between 1877 and 1969, the year the Official Languages Act came into effect, requiring federal institutions to publish content in English and in French.

The rights group initially filed a complaint with the official languages commissioner. In response, the Supreme Court, which has been translating decisions since 1970, argued that the law doesn’t apply retroactively.

In September, commissioner Raymond Théberge ruled that while the law doesn’t apply retroactively, any decisions published on the court’s website must be available in both official languages. The …