{"id":61,"date":"2017-08-12T16:30:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-12T20:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/canlawblog.com\/?p=61"},"modified":"2017-08-12T16:30:45","modified_gmt":"2017-08-12T20:30:45","slug":"can-family-represent-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/12\/can-family-represent-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Can family represent you in court?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The PEI Court of Appeal answered the question about whether can family represent you in court in\u00a0Ayangma v. Charlottetown (City) et al., 2017 PECA 15. In considering whether a father could represent his son in court, the court of appeal said yes after reviewing the following criteria:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The extent of the representation requested;<\/li>\n
  2. Whether the agent has a family relationship with the litigant (Pacer Enterprises Ltd. v. Cummings<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a02004 ABCA 28\u00a0(CanLII)<\/a>, at para.13;\u00a0Steele v. Rendell, supra<\/em><\/strong>);<\/li>\n
  3. The complexity of the case (Ofume, supra<\/em><\/strong>);<\/li>\n
  4. Vulnerability and potential harm to the lay litigant (Ofume, supra)<\/em><\/strong>;<\/li>\n
  5. Competence.\u00a0 A judge should not embark on a competence inquiry as that would raise insurmountable difficulties (R. v. Romanowicz, supra<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0 at paras.45-50), but that does not mean that competence is not a relevant consideration.\u00a0 InOfume<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0the court found \u201ccapability<\/em>\u201d of the agent to be a factor.\u00a0 I will give two examples when competence would be a relevant factor.\u00a0 The first is where a family litigant brings to court his\/her family member\/friend who is an accountant to assist in the examination or cross-examination of a witness on the issue of the income of a self-employed person.\u00a0 All else being equal, the court may find that the agent’s particular competence would be helpful to both the litigant and the court.\u00a0 The second is where the competence of the agent is so overwhelmed by the complexity of the trial, or the agent is so obviously incompetent that it would impugn the integrity of the process (Romanowicz, supra<\/em><\/strong>, para.83).\u00a0 Mere unease about the agent’s competence will not suffice.<\/li>\n
  6. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Whether the agent’s appearance would undermine the integrity of the proceedings.\u00a0Romanowicz, supra<\/em><\/strong>, at paras 56 and 74, and\u00a0R. v. Gouchie<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a02006 NSCA 109 (CanLII)<\/a>, both provide a number of examples where the agent’s appearance could undermine the integrity of the proceedings.\u00a0 For example, agents who are facing criminal charges involving interference with the administration of justice; or whose background demonstrates pervasive dishonesty or blatant disrespect for the law; or who have convictions for crimes of dishonesty or whose criminal record reveals offences or other discredible acts which permit the conclusion that they could not be relied upon to conduct a trial ethically; or agents who have a conflict of interest with the litigant; or who have demonstrated an intention not to be bound by the rules of procedure.\u00a0 In any of these cases the motions judge might exercise his or her discretion to prohibit the agent from appearing.<\/li>\n
  7. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Conditions.\u00a0 In a proper case a judge might exercise the court’s inherent discretion to allow the agent to appear subject to conditions (Ofume)<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 For example, the respondent City states that one of the issues in this case will involve protection of an informant’s identity.\u00a0 This invokes the issue of informer privilege which is a rule of fundamental importance to the workings of the criminal justice system.\u00a0 As Bastarache J. stated inNamed Person v. Vancouver Sun<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a02007 SCC 43 (CanLII)<\/a>,\u00a0[2007] 3 S.C.R. 253, at para.30:… No case\u2011by\u2011case weighing of the justification for the privilege is permitted. All information which might tend to identify the informer is protected by the privilege, and neither the Crown nor the court has any discretion to disclose this information in any proceeding, at any time.<\/li>\n
  8. Should a judge exercise the court\u2019s inherent discretion to allow the father to appear in this case, the judge might consider a condition that the father not be permitted to ask any questions which might tend to reveal the identity of any police informant.\u00a0 The informer privilege rule applies in civil cases as well as criminal cases.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    [72]\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I would allow the appeal and remit this matter back to the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island for a determination of whether or not the court should exercise its inherent jurisdiction to allow the father to represent his son considering all the relevant factors.<\/p>\n

    Justice John K. Mitchell<\/p>\n

    I AGREE:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Chief Justice David H. Jenkins<\/p>\n

    I AGREE: \u00a0 \u00a0 Justice Michele M. Murphy<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.canlii.org\/en\/pe\/pescad\/doc\/2017\/2017peca15\/2017peca15.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    The decision shocked some lawyers because<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The PEI Court of Appeal answered the question about whether can family represent you in court in\u00a0Ayangma v. Charlottetown (City) et al., 2017 PECA 15. In considering whether a father could represent his son in court, the court of appeal said yes after reviewing the following criteria: The extent of the representation requested; Whether the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rule-of-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canlawblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}