Carolyn -
There are two distinct and different situations in your question.
The first has to do with records in the custody of the originating
office, whether stored in a records center or in the office. I would
refer you to discussions on this list about Legal Holds for further
information there. Would I be right in assuming what you are working on
will be part of Ontario's RIM guidelines for ministries, agencies,
boards and commissions?
The second concerns records in the custody of the organizations'
archives, and I know that the Archives of Ontario has handled
documentation for legal cases many times. You have more control because
it is your people doing the pulling and refiling.
Getting back to the first situation, while working for the Ontario
Ministry of Labour it was my experience that certain series known to be
called into evidence or used in testimony as memory prompts (both
occasionally and frequently) were the kinds of things that records
creators would hang on to for dear life, defying all and any schedules,
best practices and so on. Here the challenge was to get staff to put
them into the central files in the first place, let alone refile.
We did succeed to a certain extent in some Labour offices with getting
staff to file these kinds of records properly, and the practice was to
pull necessary documentation at the outset of a case and refile them
after it had been closed. Generally speaking this was made easier by
the fact that the Legal Services Branch had copied everything anyway.
This also leads to another public records RIM issue...you will have
duplication between the files of the agency involved, legal services and
the courts...but that's for another day....
You might want to check out the practices at the Inspections,
Investigations and Enforcement Secretariat - as this office deals with
most of the regulatory agencies that involved in many government court
cases.
Cheers!
Mark
G. Mark Walsh, C.A.
Records & Information Analyst
Records Management and Imaging Services
Library of Virginia
(804) 692-3650
-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Heald, Carolyn (MBS)
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 3:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Refiling of original paper records
As a policy person, I'm interested in hearing the voice of practical
experience on the issue of how to handle original paper records that
have been returned after being used for legal purposes such as a court
case, or a commission of inquiry. Are records normally returned to
their proper file folders, boxes, file drawers, etc., or are they
maintained as a separate series, either for potential ongoing legal
purposes, or for sheer practical purposes?
Thanks for your input.
______________________________________
Carolyn Heald
Information Policy Adviser
Archives of Ontario
77 Grenville Street
Toronto ON M5S 1B3
Tel: (416)327-1568
Fax: (416)327-1992
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
website: http://www.archives.gov.on.ca
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
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