Supreme Court of Canada dismisses N.L. Law Society’s appeal
Law society sought to overturn ruling that its caution letter to Bob Buckingham was unreasonable
The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) has dismissed an application by the Law Society of Newfoundland and Labrador to appeal a decision regarding the way it handled a complaint against lawyer Bob Buckingham.
The SCC announced Thursday it had dismissed the application and awarded costs to Buckingham. As is typical for this type of application, the court did not provide reasons for its decision.
The law society sought to appeal a ruling of the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal, which found the society’s Complaints Authorization Committee was unreasonable in a letter of caution it sent to Buckingham over comments he made in the media after the death of his client Jonathan Henoche.
Henoche died as an inmate in Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in November 2019. A month later, 10 correctional officers were charged in relation to his death, but were cleared after a preliminary inquiry, when then-provincial court chief justice Pamela Goulding ruled
they had acted appropriately and there was insufficient evidence to send them to trial.
In an interview days after Henoche died, Buckingham said his client appeared to be the first inmate “to have died at the hands of a correctional officer,” and told the journalist, “I know more than what I can say.”
The Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE), the union representing correctional officers in the province, complained to the law society about the comments, alleging Buckingham had violated the section of its code of professional conduct requiring lawyers to encourage public respect for the administration of justice.
After some communication with Buckingham — who said he had based his comments on information in media reports from NAPE and an unnamed source, and argued he had a professional duty to advocate for his client — the Complaints Authorization Committe determined there was a basis on which to sanction him. It issued him the letter, and he later applied for a judicial review of it.
The reviewing judge quashed the committee’s decision and returned the issue to it for reconsideration, finding it wasn’t justified since it hadn’t engaged Buckingham’s arguments in a meaningful way. The law society appealed that ruling, arguing the letter was reasonable and the committee had not been required to give Buckingham reasons for its decision.
The appellate court disagreed.
“By their nature, counsels and cautions require explanation so that lawyers may understand what they have done wrong and not repeat the behaviour,” Justice Katherine O’brien wrote in a decision also signed by Justice Francis O’brien and Justice Gillian Butler.
The law society then took the case to the SCC.
Brenda Grimes, executive director of the law society, said Friday the matter will be returned to the committee for reconsideration.
“The central question in the appeal was how the standard of reasonableness review should apply to administrative bodies created by legislators, and specifically to our Complaints Authorization Committee. The Court’s decision may have implications for the work of the Complaints Authorization Committee in the future, so we felt that seeking clarification was necessary,” Grimes said. “As leave was denied, we will consider our processes moving forward.”
Buckingham said the decision to quash the letter he received speaks for itself.
“It clearly details the shortcomings of the law society’s Complaints Authorization Committee’s decision and the manner in which they made it,” he told The Telegram.