The BC Supreme Court recently found that the Health Professions Review Board improperly failed to defer to an interpretation of the Health Professions Act by a college under that statute, where its Inquiry Committee dismissed a complaint about what appeared…
An Ontario court declined to suspend a supervision order made by a Quality Assurance Committee (a “QAC”) against a physician, as he could not prove that that the supervision requirement, if left undisturbed until his judicial review, would result in…
Confusion often arises about the extent to which professional regulatory proceedings are similar to or different from criminal proceedings. While regulatory proceedings may draw on the processes of criminal courts – such as the duty of any regulatory body to…
When an inquiry committee disposes of a complaint by issuing a citation for a disciplinary hearing, to what extent is that committee’s decision subject to challenge based on either procedural fairness or on its substantive merits? A recent decision of…
Where a public officer may make an order for several reasons, but fails to explicitly justify the order based a valid ground, he may lack jurisdiction, and the order may be invalid. This jurisdictional issue was recently illustrated where the…