In its much-anticipated determination in Yatar,1 the Supreme Court docket of Canada clarified the scope of a courtroom’s discretion to judicially assessment an administrative determination in mild of a restricted statutory proper of attraction. Writing for a unanimous courtroom, Rowe J. held that neither a restricted proper of attraction nor a tribunal’s inner reconsideration course of precludes a courtroom’s discretion to undertake judicial assessment.
The tribunal determination
The appellant, Ms. Yatar, was injured in a motorcar accident and submitted claims for statutory advantages to the respondent insurer. After offering advantages to Ms. Yatar for a time frame, the respondent discontinued them. Ms. Yatar contested the respondent’s denial of advantages earlier than Ontario’s Licence Attraction Tribunal (the LAT). The LAT dismissed her utility as a result of the relevant limitation interval had expired. Ms. Yatar’s utility to the LAT for reconsideration was additionally dismissed.
The LAT’s governing statute permits attraction solely on questions of legislation and is silent on the provision of judicial assessment. In a single continuing within the Ontario Divisional Court docket, Ms. Yatar introduced each an attraction of the LAT’s determination underneath the relevant statute and an utility for judicial assessment.
The decrease courts’ choices
The Divisional Court docket dismissed Ms. Yatar’s statutory attraction on the idea that her attraction raised questions of blended truth and legislation. The courtroom additionally dismissed her utility for judicial assessment, holding that each the existence of the statutory proper of attraction, along with the LAT’s personal broad reconsideration powers, indicated a legislative intent to restrict judicial assessment to “distinctive circumstances.” Ms. Yatar appealed.
On attraction, the Ontario Court docket of Attraction upheld the Divisional Court docket’s determination to dismiss Ms. Yatar’s utility for judicial assessment, agreeing that the legislative scheme as evinced an intention to restrict recourse to the courts. The Court docket of Attraction held that the phrase “distinctive circumstances” was probably complicated, however concurred that, in precept, judicial assessment ought to be restricted to “uncommon circumstances” the place various treatments are inadequate to deal with the factual circumstances of a continuing.
The Supreme Court docket’s determination
The Supreme Court docket allowed Ms. Yatar’s attraction, discovering the Divisional Court docket had erred by concluding that solely in distinctive circumstances would judicial assessment be accessible the place there’s a restricted proper of attraction and the Court docket of Attraction had erred by concluding that the discretion to undertake judicial assessment ought to be exercised solely in “uncommon circumstances.” In line with Rowe J., the decrease courts had erred in precept by failing to correctly apply the Supreme Court docket’s determination in Strickland and by counting on a statutory proper of attraction for questions of legislation as indicative of legislative intent to limit entry to judicial assessment for questions of truth and blended truth and legislation when no such inference is warranted.
As Rowe J. defined, the place a tribunal’s inner reconsideration mechanisms haven’t been exhausted, or the place a statutory proper of attraction is unrestricted, a courtroom might decline to listen to an utility for judicial assessment as a result of an ample various treatment exists. Nonetheless, in Ms. Yatar’s case, neither situation utilized. The Supreme Court docket declined to deal with the provision of judicial assessment within the face of a privative clause that expressly restricts judicial assessment, leaving this query for an additional day.
Key takeaways
Regardless of the route to attend and see what occurs in a privative clause context, Yatar nonetheless has implications for the legislation of judicial assessment in Canada.
First, the Supreme Court docket reaffirmed the significance of the provision of judicial assessment in most contexts, together with within the face of statutory options to difficult administrative choices.
Second, the courtroom clarified that the mere existence of a restricted attraction proper shouldn’t be a ample indication of the legislature’s intention to bar entry to judicial assessment.
Third, by emphasizing the idea of “ample” options from Strickland, the courtroom has reminded litigants and decrease courts that enterprise judicial assessment is a balancing train that should take into account the needs and coverage issues underpinning the legislative scheme in difficulty.
Lastly, Yatar nonetheless continues the current pattern in administrative legislation towards rising the provision of judicial oversight of administrative choices and reducing deference to determination makers with unbiased technical experience.
The authors wish to thank Conor Lillis-White, articling scholar, for his contribution to getting ready this authorized replace.
