LAT Orders Affidavit Physically Destroyed and Whistleblower Gagged; Campisi LLP seeks SCC Leave after Charter Issue Unaddressed
(by Imtiaz Hosein, H.B.Sc., G.D.B., J.D., Personal Injury Lawyer)
In an Ontario Licence Appeal Tribunal (“LAT”) proceeding, Ms. Lucia Derenzis submitted, as evidence of institutional bias, an affidavit from a former LAT adjudicator turned whistleblower. As summarized by the Divisional Court, the affidavit appears to expose internal directions and practices including:
- Vice-Chairs of the Tribunal triaging and reassigning files involving certain law firms to particular adjudicators.
- Mandatory instructions requiring adjudicators to consult a Vice-Chair before granting remedies on motions, and to specifically not reference such consultations to the parties.
- “Motions duty team” bulletins directing adjudicators how to decide motions and directing that where a party was known to be “high conflict,” the request was to be denied or forced into a specific written motion process.
Vice-Chair McGee of the Tribunal intervened before the evidence could be considered by the adjudicator assigned to decide the matter. In decisions dated September 11 and 18, 2023, the Vice-Chair then ordered the whistleblower’s affidavit and accompanying exhibits to be physically destroyed and not further disseminated in any form, including by the affiant herself (the “Destruction and Gag Orders”).
Deliberative secrecy and privilege invoked to justify destruction of Evidence
The Tribunal rationalized the Destruction and Gag Orders by invoking deliberative secrecy and solicitor-client privilege. That justification does not fit what was destroyed: file triage and reassignment are not “decision-maker reasoning,” deliberative secrecy must give way where there are serious natural justice concerns, and “solicitor-client privilege” begs the obvious question of who the lawyer was and what legal advice justified destroying sworn evidence when Vice-Chairs/adjudicators are not necessarily lawyers. More info: LAT Orders Affidavit Physically Destroyed and Whistleblower Gagged