Steinbach to Receive King’s Bench Administrative Centre
October 20th, 2022 by Simon Reimer
On September 6th, Minister of Justice for the Province of Manitoba, Kelvin Goertzen, announced that Steinbach would soon be the site of a new filing and administrative centre for the Court of King’s Bench, Manitoba’s superior court. Goertzen made the announcement at the Steinbach court centre, surrounded by lawyers from several firms in the city.
The highly anticipated filing centre will be able to handle many different types of document filings, including claims, small claims, and probate for wills. Court files that are already in Winnipeg will continue to be filed there.
What does this mean?
Practically, the existence of this new centre means that many matters will be able to proceed locally and the process can be streamlined. Previously, certain file types required documents to be couriered, mailed, or hand delivered to the court in Winnipeg. With a local centre to file at, there will be a great reduction in time devoted to ensuring documents can be filed, which can in some cases represent a cost savings for a client. Overall, it will make the processing of files much more efficient.
The filing centre will be located at the Steinbach Court centre and will employ many of the staff that currently work there. Until now, Steinbach was the only court centre that was not a King’s Bench administrative centre. It is set to begin accepting filings on the 19th of September.
At the time of the announcement, the court centre was to be designated a Queen’s Bench administrative centre. However, in accordance with section 3 of the Court of Queen’s Bench Act, the centre will be designated as a King’s Bench centre.
