eric wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:10 pm
I stand corrected Sir. I just got the impression that the BC Supreme Court, in its original ruling to allow Holland to try again, was purposely leaving an opening for another judge, such as in Felger, to make a ruling to be used as a precedent. In any case we will know on 20 Jan, although I expect she will try to appeal it.
I’d said that I generally agreed with your conclusion, I just quibbled with terminology. But I'm rethinking that because, being lazy, I hadn’t bothered to review the appeal court decision. Now that I have I can’t agree that the B.C. Court of Appeal was deliberately scheming to get Holland to walk into a trap. All that they are really saying that she screwed up procedurally and has to start over. This is the summary of the decision;
Summary:
The appellant appeals an order dismissing an application for leave to bring a petition challenging the decision of Crown counsel to stay a private prosecution. This Court was referred the question of whether two vexatious litigant orders to which the appellant is subject apply in the context of a petition seeking to challenge a stay of proceedings entered pursuant to the Criminal Code. Held: Leave to appeal granted, appeal allowed, and order below set aside without prejudice to the appellant’s right to begin the proceedings anew by way of application for certiorari. The proceedings below ought to have been quashed at the outset. A challenge to a stay of proceedings entered pursuant to the Criminal Code is a criminal matter properly brought as an application for an extraordinary remedy, not as a petition for judicial review, to which vexatious litigant orders issued under provincial statutory authority do not apply.
Holland v. British Columbia (Attorney General)
2020 BCCA 304
http://canlii.ca/t/jbh5d
Her two vexatious litigant orders are in respect to civil matters but this is a criminal matter where different rules apply. In civil matters the Crown can stay a private prosecution by claiming the applicant has previously been deemed vexatious but the vexatious litigant order doesn’t carry across to criminal matters. However what the appeal court is really saying is that there should have been no private information to allow or refuse in the first place. It isn’t an appropriate way to respond when disagreeing with the Crown’s decision to stay charges and Holland shouldn’t have tried it.
[3] It is apparent that the challenge to a stay of a private prosecution ordered pursuant to s. 579 of the Code ought to have been brought by way of an application for certiorari according to the Criminal Rules and not by petition pursuant to the JRPA. Ms. Holland relied on the wrong procedure to challenge the stay. By doing so, she injected a complexity into the issues which ought not to have arisen. Accordingly, I propose to restate the question slightly to capture what I take to be the real issue, which is whether vexatious litigant orders pronounced pursuant to provincial legislation apply to properly brought challenges to a stay of proceedings entered by the Crown. If they do, then leave would be required before commencing a challenge to such a stay. If they do not, then leave is not required.
I’m not going to do a full analysis of the decision, it’s long and complex and the above quote is sufficient. The appeal court is saying that the lower court should have stomped on her private prosecution application as being invalid “The proceedings below ought to have been quashed at the outset”. The trial court then could have disallowed her complaint because the Crown has the discretion to stay charges if it wishes. Holland should then have appealed the decision to have charges stayed to B.C Court of Appeal in the normal way through an “application for certiorari” rather than pissing around with private prosecutions because “By doing so, she injected a complexity into the issues which ought not to have arisen”. So really all that the appeals court has done is just sent it back for Holland to try again;
Leave to appeal granted, appeal allowed, and order below set aside without prejudice to the appellant’s right to begin the proceedings anew by way of application for certiorari.
So it just means she’s back where she started. The lower court can quash her demand that the charges not be stayed and she’s free to appeal that decision if she wants but only by using the correct rules and procedures.