CanLII Scraper: Canadian Case Law Database to JSON

Pulls court and tribunal decisions from CanLII by jurisdiction, court and year. Each record carries the neutral citation, the decision date, the docket number, the full judgment text, and the cases and legislation the decision cites.

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CanLII Scraper Features

• Collects decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Courts, the provincial and territorial courts, and the tribunals CanLII lists under each jurisdiction
• Returns the complete judgment text, or leaves it out when you only need the index
• Captures the citation graph: the CanLII path of every case a decision cites, and every statute section it points to
• Narrows by court code, by jurisdiction, and by a range of decision years, newest first
• Accepts CanLII decision, court and year-listing addresses directly
• Splits a busy year into months on its own, so a court that issues more than 500 decisions a year is still collected in full

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What can you do with Canadian case law data?

• Legal researchers — build a corpus of appellate decisions for one court and one period, then run your own analysis on the text
• Legal-tech teams — feed judgments and their citation graphs into search, summarisation or precedent-mapping tools
• Academics — study how often a court cites another, or how a doctrine moves across provinces, with the cited paths already extracted
• Compliance and risk teams — watch a tribunal's recent decisions for the regulator or sector you answer to
• Journalists — pull every decision a court issued in a month and read the ones that matter

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How CanLII Scraper works

1. Choose a jurisdiction, or name courts directly as jurisdiction/court (for example ca/scc or on/onca).
2. The scraper finds each court's decision listing, restricted to the years you ask for, and starts with the newest.
3. It opens every decision and returns one record, with the text and the citation graph.

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Input

{
  "jurisdictions": ["ca"],
  "courts": ["ca/scc"],
  "yearFrom": 2023,
  "yearTo": 2024,
  "includeFullText": true,
  "maxItems": 50
}

Field	Type	Default	Description
jurisdictions	array	["ca"]	Jurisdictions to collect from: ca (federal), ab, bc, mb, nb, nl, ns, nt, nu, on, pe, qc, sk, yt
courts	array	empty	Limit the run to specific courts, written jurisdiction/court. Empty means every court and tribunal under the chosen jurisdictions
yearFrom	integer	newest	Earliest decision year to collect
yearTo	integer	newest	Latest decision year to collect. With neither year set, each court contributes its newest year
includeFullText	boolean	true	Return the judgment text. Turn off to keep records small
startUrls	array	empty	CanLII decision pages, court pages or year listings. They replace jurisdictions and courts
maxItems	integer	5	Maximum number of decisions to return

Court codes are the path segments CanLII uses in its own addresses. ca/scc is the Supreme Court of Canada, ca/fca the Federal Court of Appeal, on/onca the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

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CanLII Scraper Output Fields

{
  "case_name": "Shot Both Sides v. Canada",
  "citation": "2024 SCC 12",
  "other_citations": ["490 DLR (4th) 585", "[2024] SCJ No 12 (QL)", "[2024] ACS no 12"],
  "court": "Supreme Court of Canada",
  "court_code": "ca/scc",
  "jurisdiction": "ca",
  "decision_date": "2024-04-12",
  "docket_number": "40153",
  "judgment_url": "https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2024/2024scc12/2024scc12.html",
  "short_url": "https://canlii.ca/t/k40h4",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2024/2024scc12/2024scc12.pdf",
  "judgment_text": "SUPREME COURT OF CANADA\n\nCitation: Shot Both Sides v. Canada, 2024 SCC 12 ...",
  "cited_cases": ["/en/bc/bcca/doc/2020/2020bcca138/2020bcca138.html", "/en/ca/fca/doc/2022/2022fca20/2022fca20.html"],
  "cited_legislation": [{ "path": "/en/ca/laws/stat/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk-1982-c-11/latest/schedule-b-to-the-canada-act-1982-uk-1982-c-11.html", "text": "Constitution Act, 1982" }]
}

Field	Type	Description
case_name	string	Style of cause
citation	string	Neutral citation
other_citations	array	Parallel citations printed on the decision page
court	string	Court or tribunal name
court_code	string	Court code, such as ca/scc
jurisdiction	string	Jurisdiction code
decision_date	string	Decision date, YYYY-MM-DD
docket_number	string	Docket or file number. Several are joined with a semicolon when a decision lists many
judgment_url	string	The CanLII decision page
short_url	string	CanLII short link
pdf_url	string	PDF copy on CanLII
judgment_text	string	Full judgment text. Empty when text is switched off, or when a decision is published only as a PDF
cited_cases	array	CanLII paths of the decisions this one cites
cited_legislation	array	Legislation cited, each with its CanLII path and the section label

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FAQ

How do I scrape CanLII case law?

CanLII Scraper takes a jurisdiction or a list of court codes and a range of years, and returns one JSON record per decision. Set courts to ["ca/scc"] and yearTo to 2024 and you get the Supreme Court's 2024 decisions, newest first.

What data can I get from CanLII?

CanLII Scraper returns the style of cause, neutral and parallel citations, court, decision date, docket number, the full judgment text, and the cases and statutes each decision cites. Keywords and headnotes are not part of the output.

Which courts does it cover?

CanLII Scraper covers whatever CanLII lists under a jurisdiction: federal courts and tribunals, the provincial and territorial courts, and the boards and tribunals beneath them. Legislation databases are not included.

Is the judgment text in English or French?

CanLII Scraper reads CanLII's English pages. A decision issued in French stays in French; the record is the same, the language is the court's.

How far back can I go?

CanLII Scraper goes back as far as a court's year listing does. Set yearFrom and yearTo to bound it, and maxItems to stop a run at the number of decisions you want.

How much does CanLII Scraper cost to run?

CanLII Scraper charges per decision returned, so a run that returns 50 decisions costs for 50. The Apify pricing panel on this page shows the current rate.

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Need More Features?

Need extra fields, another jurisdiction layout or a different legal database? File an issue or get in touch.

Why Use CanLII Scraper?

• Whole decisions — the judgment text and the citation graph arrive in one record, not spread across calls
• Bounded by you — pick the courts, the years and the count, and the run stops when it has them
• Clean output — consistent field names and ISO dates, so the data goes into a database or a model without a cleaning pass