How to Access Court Records in Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island has no public, from-home online court records search: the only searchable index of Supreme Court case files is an in-person terminal at the Charlottetown courthouse, and most other requests go through the registry counter in writing.

Information last verified on 2026-08-15. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Court Structure in Prince Edward Island

Under the Judicature Act, the single Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island that historically held both original and appellate jurisdiction continues today as two named courts sharing one Registrar: the Court of Appeal of Prince Edward Island (appellate jurisdiction) and the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island (original jurisdiction, civil and criminal). Whether the Supreme Court is currently organized internally into a separate Trial Division was not confirmed from the statute's transition provisions and should not be assumed either way.

The Provincial Court of Prince Edward Island is continued under Part 2 of the Provincial Court Act. Anyone searching for this statute online should be careful about which chapter number they land on: an earlier chapter, P-25, is now mostly repealed, and the current, in-force version is a renumbered chapter, P-25.1. Whether small claims matters run as a division of the Provincial Court or under a separate Small Claims Act was not confirmed from the statutes reviewed for this article.

No Public Online Court Records Search

This is the central fact for anyone trying to search Prince Edward Island court records from home: no such tool exists. The Supreme Court's own access guide, under the heading "Electronic Searches," describes only this: a person unsure which file they need may conduct an electronic search of the Register of Actions at the Supreme Court in Charlottetown, where court staff may provide assistance. That is an in-courthouse terminal, not a web portal, and the guide does not describe any equivalent remote-access tool.

No forward-looking docket-calendar page comparable to what other Atlantic provinces offer was confirmed to exist for Prince Edward Island courts, such as Newfoundland and Labrador's Provincial Court Public Portal. A page titled "Supreme Court Docket" turns up in web search results under courts.pe.ca, but its URL could not be reached this session to confirm what it shows or whether it functions as a public search tool. Treat that specific page as unresolved rather than confirmed to exist or confirmed not to; the only search method this article can confirm is the in-person Register of Actions terminal described above.

How to Request Court Records

Requests are made in writing, either in person at the court registry counter in Charlottetown, open 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., or by mail or drop-off. Proof of identity is required of any member of the public, and additionally required of an otherwise-authorized person, such as a party, when the record sought is from the family section.

Even once access to a record has been granted, the guide is explicit that records are not generally provided by mail, fax, or email. A requester has to physically attend the court office to review the material or pick up copies. Broad, topical, or blanket search requests, such as asking how many lawsuits have been filed against a particular business, are refused outright: the registry searches only by party name or court file number.

Audio recordings of a proceeding are available to a person who was present, or entitled to be present, in the courtroom, using a specific request form, submitted in person at either the Charlottetown or Summerside court office. Child protection hearings are a named exception: no one is entitled to an audio recording of a child protection proceeding under any circumstance.

Fees

These figures come from the Schedule of Fees attached as Appendix H to the Supreme Court's own Access to Court Records Guide.

Transcripts

Prince Edward Island does not run a court-office, per-page transcript-preparation service the way some other provinces do. Instead, a requester buys the raw audio recording on CD or USB for $20 and is responsible for independently arranging and paying a certified transcription service to produce a written transcript. For an appeal, the Court of Appeal requires one hard copy and one electronic copy produced through that process. Questions about judge-directed transcription for an appeal go to the Trial Coordinator's office.

Restrictions on Access

Several categories of proceedings and records are closed to the public entirely or substantially restricted:

• Family law proceedings are presumptively closed to the public, with the court holding discretion to hear a matter in private. Non-party access to family case records requires either the judge's and both parties' permission, or falls to a defined list of already-authorized people.
• Child protection hearings and appeals are closed under the Child Protection Act, and court staff are not permitted to provide public or media access to these records at all.
• Adoption proceedings are private hearings under the Adoption Act, and the associated records are not publicly accessible.
• Maintenance Enforcement Act proceedings exclude the public to protect the financial and personal information involved.
• Incompetent-persons applications, such as guardianship or committee appointments, are heard privately with restricted record access.
• Criminal matters carry several specific protections: the federal Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) governs youth privacy and publication bans, and the Criminal Records Act governs bail-hearing records and record suspensions or pardons. Jury lists are available only to the parties, not the public. Wiretap and surveillance-order records, and even the fact that such an order exists, cannot be disclosed without a judge's order. Pre-sentence reports, bail verification reports, Gladue Reports, and medical, psychiatric, or psychological reports all require judicial permission to access. Victim impact statements are inaccessible until read aloud in court, and require judicial permission to access even after that.
• Bankruptcy filings under the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act are public for proposals, bankruptcies, trustee appointments, and receiver notices, but a bankrupt person's own books and papers are restricted to the bankrupt, affected creditors, and the Superintendent of Bankruptcy.
• Certain internal documents are never public even within an otherwise open file: trial-coordinator scheduling correspondence, NSF-cheque correspondence with court officials, and fee waiver information.
• A file connected to a pending confidentiality or sealing ruling, or physically in a judge's possession around a hearing, is withheld from public and media access until the judge rules or the file is returned.

Access to a record is not the same as permission to publish it. A publication ban restricts what can be disseminated, not whether the underlying record can be viewed, and breaching a publication ban is itself an offence. Finding something in a court file never makes it lawful to publish.

The open-court principle behind all of this traces back to the same Supreme Court of Canada line of cases that governs court access nationally, including A.G. (Nova Scotia) v. MacIntyre and the Dagenais/Mentuck framework; see the Canada court records hub for the fuller explanation of that doctrine.

Court Records Are Not a Criminal Record Check

Searching a Prince Edward Island court file is a different thing from getting a police criminal record check. A court search looks at what happened in a specific case, while a criminal record check pulls from the national, RCMP-maintained database that employers, volunteer organizations, and border agencies typically request. For that process, see criminal record checks in Canada and background checks and employment in Canada. If someone has since received a record suspension or pardon, see record suspensions and pardons in Canada. None of this article's information should be used to screen a tenant or job applicant informally; use a proper, consent-based record check for that purpose.

For how to start a civil claim generally, including small claims, see how to file a small claim in Canada. For Prince Edward Island's birth, death, and marriage certificates, a related but separate government record, see vital records in Prince Edward Island.

Disclaimer

This article is informational only and is not legal advice. Prince Edward Island's court access policies and fees can change, so confirm the current photocopy and other fee figures with the registry before relying on them. Whether the Provincial Court of Prince Edward Island has its own published access guide, separate from the Supreme Court's, was not confirmed for this article. Whether a page titled "Supreme Court Docket" found in web search results reflects a real online docket-search tool could not be confirmed this session; its URL did not load. A publication ban restricts what can be shared even where a record can be viewed; breaching one is an offence. For a specific matter, confirm current procedures, fees, and restrictions directly with the Prince Edward Island court registry.