R. Ellis

As we watch the Ford government’s attack on the impartiality and competence of Ontario’s adjudicative tribunals, it is time to refresh our understanding of the legal profession’s obligation to defend the justice system.

As we ponder the question of whether the Ford government’s assault on the security of tenure of adjudicators in Ontario’s administrative justice system is constitutionally valid, and await the decision of the BC Court of Appeal in Walter v. BC[1], a reminder of the constitutional argument would seem to be timely.

While the Ford government is busy destroying the independence and impartiality of our administrative justice tribunals, it is also wreaking havoc with the legal aid services on which much of the advocacy before those tribunals depend. Now comes news that

In this, the third post on Ford’s administrative-justice policies, the topic is the remedies that would present themselves were it found that, notwithstanding Ocean Port, the unwritten, constitutional principle of judicial independence does apply to adjudicative tribunals – a proposition at issue in current appeal proceedings in Walter v. BC.

In this post, Ellis begins to examine the legal bases for court-challenges of the Ford executive branch’s regressive policies concerning the administration of the Province’s adjudicative tribunals and their members.