No power to review Clark pay conflict, judge says

Legislative issue out of court’s jurisdiction

The B.C. Supreme Court says it has no jurisdiction to review decisions by the Office of the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, including that Premier Christy Clark did not violate the law by taking $50,000 annually from the B.C. Liberal Party.

Justice Kenneth Affleck on Wednesday rejected an application for a judicial review by the citizens’ group, Democracy Watch, which complained about decisions made by commissioner Paul Fraser on May 4 and Aug. 9 concerning the party’s fundraising techniques.

Following up on complaints initially brought by NDP MLA David Eby, the group argued Fraser unreasonably concluded payments to the premier were not a real or apparent conflict of interest.

Justice Affleck addressed only the court’s jurisdiction and not the merits of the arguments and agreed with the commissioner that his rulings are protected by a legislative privilege.

“The petitioner’s argument has a superficial plausibility but I cannot agree with it,” he said, calling the Democracy Watch application “novel.”

“There is an abundance of high authority against the petitioner’s position on jurisdiction. It is for the legislature to consider the conduct of its officers, when they are performing their assigned role, not the courts.”

Vancouver lawyer Jason Gratl said his client had been cautiously optimistic the court would step in but “to our chagrin, Mr. Justice Affleck decided otherwise.

“We are left in the unenviable position as members of the public of not having a meaningful avenue of redress when the government executive is in a conflict of interest,” he added.

Eby said he was “disappointed” by the ruling.

“But certainly one area where I agree with both the commissioner and the court is it’s up to our legislature to put better rules in place around taking a salary or payments for political donations, and around limiting individual donations and eliminating union and corporate donations,” said Eby.

“We need to fix our laws. I think almost everyone except for the B.C. Liberals agree on that. And hopefully this decision if nothing else is just part of the continuing pressure on the government to do the right thing.”

Clark announced last week she would no longer accept her party stipend and would instead submit her expenses for reimbursement.

Her government then announced it would introduce legislation this spring to force political parties to publish public donor information every two weeks.

The NDP said it will introduce a bill to ban corporate and union donations to political parties.

It is for the legislature to consider the conduct of its officers, when they are performing their assigned role, not the courts.