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Difference between revisions of "Review of Administrative Decisions for Public Complaints (5:III)"
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Review of Administrative Decisions for Public Complaints (5:III) (view source)
Revision as of 22:06, 26 August 2019
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Generally, powers of review and review procedures are set out in the statutes and regulations that govern a particular tribunal or court. Agencies themselves further clarify this process. Many publish handbooks for internal use that are available to the general public on the court or tribunal's websites or in law libraries. Lawyers with experience in the area may also provide valuable insight. Lawyers at the Community Legal Assistance Society can be helpful when dealing with specific problems, especially those dealing with poverty law topics (EI, WCB, Income Assistance, Human Rights). | Generally, powers of review and review procedures are set out in the statutes and regulations that govern a particular tribunal or court. Agencies themselves further clarify this process. Many publish handbooks for internal use that are available to the general public on the court or tribunal's websites or in law libraries. Lawyers with experience in the area may also provide valuable insight. Lawyers at the Community Legal Assistance Society can be helpful when dealing with specific problems, especially those dealing with poverty law topics (EI, WCB, Income Assistance, Human Rights). | ||
'''NOTE: Pay attention to time limits.''' Many worthy cases have been lost because an advocate failed to pay proper attention to limitation periods. Some limitation periods are very short. | '''NOTE: Pay attention to time limits.''' Many worthy cases have been lost because an advocate failed to pay proper attention to limitation periods. Some limitation periods are very short. | ||
'''NOTE: Exhausting internal appeals before judicial review.''' There is a general rule in administrative law which requires that, where tribunals or other administrative decision-makers (such as public universities) have an internal review or appeals process, applicants must exhaust these internal processes before applying for judicial review by the courts (see ''Harelkin v University of Regina'', [1979] 2 SCR 561). | |||
'''NOTE: Procedural fairness in internal review processes: as a general rule''', administrative tribunals are limited in the scope of their internal review processes to the specific grounds of review listed in their enabling legislation. This raises the question of whether an applicant is able to challenge an administrative tribunal’s decision on procedural fairness grounds if the enabling legislation for the tribunal does not explicitly include procedural fairness as one of the grounds for internal review. This question was recently addressed by the BC Supreme Court in ''Stelmack v Amaruso'' (14 July 2017), Vancouver S175091 (BCSC). The case involved a judicial review of an internal review by the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) which had failed to address a procedural fairness violation from the initial hearing because procedural fairness was not one of the three listed grounds for internal review in section 79(2) of the ''Residential Tenancy Act''. The BC Supreme Court ruled that even if the enabling legislation does not list procedural fairness as a specific ground for internal review, arbitrators nonetheless must always consider issues of procedural fairness. The practical ramifications of this decision are currently unclear, but it opens the door to making procedural fairness arguments during all internal review processes in addition to the grounds listed in the tribunal’s enabling legislation. | |||
See '''Section III.C.1.c(2): Procedural Fairness''' of this chapter below for more on procedural fairness. | |||
== Step Three: Examining an Appeal == | == Step Three: Examining an Appeal == | ||
