Court did not have inherent jurisdiction to require respondent to produce record

JUDICIAL REVIEW

Court did not have inherent jurisdiction to require respondent to produce record

Applicant filed complaint of professional misconduct against engineer and his company with respondent association. Respondent’s complaints committee determined there was no evidence of professional misconduct of significant nature and decided not to refer complaint to discipline committee. Applicant commenced application for judicial review and asked respondent to file record of proceedings or, alternatively, provide to him all documents relating to investigation, proceeding and decision so that he could do so. Respondent denied request, claiming no record needed to be filed. Applicant brought motion for order requiring respondent to disclose above-noted documents including complaint summary, response and other documents referred to in decision, all evidence and submissions provided by anyone other than himself, any internal notes and memoranda, all audio recordings, including voicemail, all communications, including letters and e-mails, witness interview notes and any other relevant documents. He claimed court could not conduct proper judicial review of either investigation or decision without those documents. Respondent submitted that if any record was necessary, it should consist only of complaint form and materials filed by applicant, documents before complaints committee at time decision made, and that were not privileged, and reasons for decision itself. Motion denied. Under s. 24(1) of Professional Engineers Act (Ont.) (PEA), complaints committee required to conduct proper investigation of complaints. Under s. 24(2) of Act, it was permitted, not required, to refer complaint to discipline committee. In absence of mandatory language, decision to not refer did not constitute statutory power of decision. Section 10 of Judicial Review Procedure Act (Ont.) (JRPA), did not, therefore, apply to require decision maker to file record of proceedings. Court did not have inherent jurisdiction to require respondent to produce record in absence of statutory power of decision. Respondent should not be required to provide anything more than material already mentioned.
Harrison v. Assn. of Professional Engineers of Ontario (Nov. 12, 2014, Ont. S.C.J., Robert N. Beaudoin J., File No. 14-1999) 247 A.C.W.S. (3d) 2.