The Supreme Court of Canada is seeking an $8-million facelift of its walnut-panelled courtroom to bring it into the computer age and make the nine judges and their proceedings look better on television.

The court will make a final appeal to the federal Treasury Board this fall for special funding to fix the chamber's dim lighting, poor acoustics, outdated audiovisual and translation equipment, and its lack of computer capability that forces judges and lawyers to shuffle through mounds of paper during hearings.

"This is a major overhaul," said the court's deputy registrar, Louise Meagher.

One of the biggest shortcomings, said Ms. Meagher, is the 15-year-old audiovisual system, which gives the most senior judges in the country a "blueish tinge" in hearings that are televised on the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC).

"It looks a bit amateurish," said Ms. Meagher, especially when stacked up against slick U.S. courtroom dramas.

"We are very hopeful we are nearing the achievement of our goal," Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin recently told a group of lawyers.

A Supreme Court report to the government last year described the court chamber as "one of the most significant and symbolic rooms in the country" that needs refurbishment to "continue to function efficiently and to meet the technological requirements of legal proceedings in the 21st century."

Another issue is the 65-year-old courtroom is still virtually computerless at a time when much of the working world is firmly electronic.

Only Justice Marie Deschamps, the youngest judge on the bench, brings in a laptop to take notes during hearings, said Ms. Meagher.

The courtroom needs to be revamped to accommodate a computer system, and permit lawyers to tap into information electronically and beam it to judges instead of them sifting through legal briefs, she said. The court will also be equipped for power-point presentations and Internet access, she added, although it has not been decided whether lawyers and judges will be able to go online during hearings.

The money the court seeks for the modernization is "a fairly modest amount," Chief Justice McLachlin said in her address to lawyers earlier this month.

"We were very proud at the Supreme Court of Canada that we were one of the first courts to introduce televising our hearing at the appellate level," she said. "Unfortunately, we have not been able to keep our equipment and our facilities as up to date as we would have wished. We're hopeful we'll be able to remedy that in the better interests of all who come to our court and in the better interests of serving the public."

Ms. Meagher confirmed the amount of money the court is seeking is $8 million.

It is one of the courtroom's most comprehensive overhauls, she added, and it has been in the works for several years, with electronic courtrooms in the United States serving as models.

The courthouse, designed by Canadian architect Ernest Cormier, was built from 1938-1941, and it is widely considered to be one of Ottawa's finest buildings, sitting on a bluff overlooking the Ottawa River. At the time the 7.3-metre-high courtroom was designed, technology was never a consideration and the TV monitors now hang in spots that originally held art deco light fixtures.

The planned facelift follows an extensive revamp of the House of Commons in 2003-04 to install new audiovisual equipment, computer capabilities, and lighting to replace 25-year-old systems that had "reached the end of their shelf life," said Colette Dery, a spokeswoman in the Speaker's office.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006