Delgamuukw

Delgamuukw v. The Queen is a Supreme Court of Canada appeal that essentially ammended the laws of admissible evidence specific to Aboriginal claim allowing for oral histories.  It was filed by the Wet'suwet'en and the Gitksan who were claiming 58 000 square kilometers of land (larger than the province of Nova Scotia).

It was a big case - and the stats on it tell exactly how big:

• 318 days of testimony
• 61 witnesses (many using translators from their native language
• 'word spellers' had to assist the official court reporters
• 53 territorial affidavits were filed
• 23,503 pages of transcript evidence
• 5,898 pages of transcript argument
• 3,039 pages of commission evidence
• 2,553 pages of cross-examination on affidavits
• 9,200 exhibits were filed (well over 50,000 pages)
• the plantiff's draft 'outline' of argument was 3.250 pages
• the province's 1,975 pages (28 large binders of documents)
• resulting judgement was over 400 pages in length

I was struck by the volume of evidence presented.  That's all for now, we only have to read about 40 pages of the ruling, and I am only on pg. 28.