Well said, aterpster!
Another element that seems to have been overlooked in the thread: from what was said so far it appears that the reason a court proceeding is requesting the CVR recordings is to DEFEND one of the involved parties (Canadian ATC - who based on the accident report did nothing wilfully wrong, but was not quite up to speed with the unfolding weather scenario either...) from litigation, rather than to prosecute anyone. They are doing so because they believe certain FACTUAL information was ommitted from the accident report.