Davis Wins Important Case Regarding Administrative Law

Published: Monday, 7 June 2010

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A team of Davis lawyers, led by Greg Heinrichs, Q.C., was recently successful in the Alberta Court of Appeal - Mitten v College of Psychologists case. The decision is an important administrative law decision because it confirms that when dealing with public complaints that are made against members of self-regulating professions, the governing body of the profession, must give procedural fairness to the complainants.

The background:

Our client, Ida Mitten, had made complaints to the College of Alberta Psychologists accusing her psychologist of unethical behaviour towards her. The registrar of the college retrieved responses to the complaints from the accused psychologist but refused to provide the complainant with copies of those responses. The registrar dismissed the complaint without identifying for the complainant what material was relied upon for the decision.

The legislation gives the complainant a right of appeal to the discipline committee of the college and she exercised her right of appeal. We represented the complainant at the appeal. Before and at the appeal, the complainant objected to an assortment of procedures that the appeal panel chose to follow. The objections included (among other things) that the appeal panel considered the responses of the accused psychologist without providing copies of same to the complainant.

The complainant's appeal was dismissed. On behalf of the complainant, we applied for judicial review of the decision of the appeal panel. We alleged that the appeal panel had failed to provide a reasonable degree of natural justice and procedural fairness to the complainant when dealing with the appeal. The College applied to strike the application for judicial review alleging that the Alberta Court of Appeal decision in Old Man River v Appegga conclusively determined that complainants are never entitled to judicial review of a dismissal of a complaint. The Court of Queens Bench accepted this argument and this interpretation of the Old Man River decision and struck out the application for judicial review with costs in favour of the College.

On appeal, the Alberta Court of Appeal reinstated the most important aspects of the application for judicial review and specifically stated that complainants such as Ida Mitten are entitled to a degree of natural justice and procedural fairness in the way that their complaints are dealt with by the College of Psychologists. The decision will impact the way that all self-regulating professions in Alberta deal with members of the public who make complaints to the regulating authority about the members of each profession. Mr. Heinrichs was assisted by Priscilla Kennedy and Deborah Szatylo.