An interesting question, answered in Edmonton (Police Service) v Alberta (Law Enforcement Review Board), 2014 ABCA 267. A complaint was made against a police officer but dismissed by the Chief of the Edmonton Police Service after an internal review. The complainant appealed to the Board. A report of the internal review was made available for […] Read more

Regular readers will know that I have no fondness for the idea that the “common objective” of courts and administrative decision-makers is the proper application of the principles of statutory interpretation. In part, my position is that it is unrealistic to expect administrative decision-makers to apply these principles. Some empirical doubt is cast on that […] Read more

Canadian courts are to take five factors into account in determining the content of procedural fairness in any given case. One of these factors is whether the applicant had any legitimate expectation about the procedure to be followed. I have always found this unusual. Surely once an applicant establishes that a legitimate expectation has been […] Read more

In a remarkable decision yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down British Columbia’s regime of court fees as unconstitutional: Trial Lawyers Association of British Columbia v. British Columbia (Attorney General), 2014 SCC 59. A litigant was faced with a $3,600 bill for scheduling a 10-day trial. She could not pay the court fees — […] Read more

Canadian administrative law is different in many ways from that of other Commonwealth jurisdictions, but on one question it (for the most part) clings doggedly to an old mantra: procedural questions are for the courts alone to decide, without any deference to decision-makers. This orthodoxy has recently been challenged as a matter of principle. But […] Read more

I have been known to complain about courts and administrators supplementing the administrative record after a decision has been made. In a case last year, a Canadian appellate court deferred to an interpretation of law offered in an affidavit. I was reminded at the Public Law Conference that the use of affidavits to bolster the […] Read more

One of the panels at the inaugural Public Law Conference last week (see my previous post) was on legitimate expectations. I was keenly interested, as I have agreed to contribute a chapter to a forthcoming (early 2016) collection on legitimate expectations in the common law world. Cora Hoexter was sympathetic to legitimate expectations as she […] Read more

Last week I presented my paper “Administrative Law: a Values-Based Approach” at the inaugural Public Law Conference at the University of Cambridge. I hope to have a few posts on the conference, focusing on panels that I attended. But I will start with a post on my own paper. By way of general comment, I […] Read more

Here is a technical problem, discussed in Yellow Cab Company Ltd. v. Passenger Transportation Board, 2014 BCCA 329. When a decision-maker reconsiders, or refuses to reconsider a decision, what is the significance of the original decision for a judicial review application? As a general rule: [40]        Where a party has taken advantage of […] Read more

I posted recently about Canada’s new anti-spam law, mentioning the challenges that the CRTC would face in implementing it. The CRTC has established a complaints mechanism which can be accessed via its website.  Have a look here. It is proving popular: more than 1,000 complaints were received in the first week. By the end of […] Read more