Lawyer for suspended officers demands their reinstatement

Lawyer’s letter says Craig James and Gary Lenz treated in ‘deliberately public and humiliating manner’

The legislature clerk and sergeant-at-arms who were suspended and ushered from the building are asking to be returned to active duty.

In a letter from their lawyer to the three party house leaders, Craig James and Gary Lenz deny any wrongdoing and say they have been kept in the dark about the nature of the allegations against them.

Vancouver lawyer Mark D. Andrews writes that his clients were given no advance notice of the motion that passed in the legislature Tuesday, placing them on administrative leave with pay and benefits. “Instead, immediately afterwards they were ejected from the legislature in what appears to have been a deliberately public and humiliating manner, on the basis of secret allegations,” the letter states.

James and Lenz have been suspended pending the results of a police investigation regarding their administrative duties. The clerk oversees the running of the legislature and the sergeant-at-arms is in charge of security.

Two special prosecutors have been appointed, but no charges have been laid and no details of the allegations have been released.

Andrews, a lawyer with Fasken, Martineau DuMoulin, says his clients are entitled to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. “They are the most senior and long-serving and loyal servants of the legislative assembly whose reputations are in the process of being destroyed by these events,” the letter states.

Andrews says that, without any facts showing that James and Lenz are unable to carry out their duties pending the results of the investigation, his clients should be returned to active duty.

“So far as we and our clients are aware, there are no such facts,” he says. “The mere fact there is an investigation is not a sufficient basis to suspend them from their posts.”

Andrews stressed that his clients are not asking for the investigation to be stopped. They are willing to co-operate and want the probe to proceed quickly, he says.

The letter argues that it was improper that the house leaders and MLAs apparently were given no information about the allegations before passing the motion to suspend James and Lenz.

“With respect, the passage of this hasty and uninformed motion is undermining public confidence and needs to be reconsidered without delay in accordance with basic principles of fairness and proper procedure.”

The letter says the motion should be rescinded before the house adjourns next week.

Andrews adds that Speaker Darryl Plecas had no constitutional authority to investigate the officers and no authority to hire a special adviser to do so.

Government house leader Mike Farnworth said in a statement late Friday that the motion to place the officers on administrative leave was approved unanimously by every member of the legislature.

“The decision to bring the motion before the house was made by all three house leaders,” he said. “The RCMP are conducting an active investigation with the assistance of two special prosecutors appointed by the independent B.C. Prosecution Service. This is a serious matter and the appropriate course of action for all is to refrain from speculation and allow the police to do their job.”

The B.C. Liberals, however, are raising concerns about whether proper procedures were followed and competent legal advice obtained.

“If the Speaker is going around creating his own parallel government with his own investigation service and his own legal service, that is a very serious problem,” Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson said in an interview. “And all of that should have been reviewed by the attorney general before bringing this before the house on Tuesday.”

Wilkinson has written Farnworth and Green Party house leader Sonia Furstenau seeking information on events leading up to the suspensions and the nature of the legal advice provided.

Opposition house leader Mary Polak also wrote to Plecas on Friday asking him to convene an emergency meeting of the allparty legislative assembly management committee, which oversees legislature operations.

Former attorney general Wally Oppal came to the defence of Plecas Friday, one day after being hired as a special legal adviser to the Speaker’s office.

“I can tell you that the Speaker is a well-spoken, intelligent person with a great academic background and he didn’t do anything in a capricious way,” Oppal told reporters at the B.C. legislature. “I can understand the public being concerned about this, but time will tell, and it will take some time before it all comes out. But I can assure you that, from my knowledge of matters, the Speaker got and sought advice before he did the things that he did do,” Oppal said.

“It is somewhat unfair, in my view, to be cross-examining the Speaker. He’s in a quasi-judicial role.”

Plecas has been the focus of attention since it was revealed he hired his friend, Alan Mullen, as a special adviser in January, in part to address concerns that Plecas had about the clerk and sergeantat-arms.

Mullen played a prominent role in the suspensions and together with police escorted both men from the building after the motion to suspend them passed the house on Tuesday.

Mullen has also made media appearances on behalf of Plecas and disclosed earlier that he played a role in investigating the issues behind the suspensions before turning information over to police in late August.

It was also revealed Thursday that Plecas suggested making Mullen the acting sergeant-atarms in a meeting with house leaders the night before Lenz was suspended. The house leaders from all three parties confirm the suggestion was firmly rejected.

Plecas initially agreed to answer reporters questions on Thursday, but ultimately did not. Instead, Mullen read a statement announcing Oppal’s appointment as a legal adviser to the Speaker.

“I know that he agreed to meet with the media and to give a statement, and he thought better of it, and I think that was a wise course of events,” Oppal said. “I don’t think the Speaker of the house, in a quasi-judicial role, should be required to give statements.”

Oppal, a former judge, said details of investigations are not released to the public because they don’t always result in charges, and releasing information could compromise the selection of a fair jury or prejudice a person’s right to a fair trial.

“The investigation may come to a conclusion that no charges are warranted,” he said. “So there’s all kinds of issues like that.”