The Court considered whether the Applicant’s Amended Originating Application constituted an abuse of process. The Director of SafeRoads (the “Director”) argued that the Applicant should not be permitted to make new arguments or advance new evidence in a Judicial Review as it purported to do pursuant to the Amended Originating Application. Counsel for the Applicant noted that the Director’s interpretation is too narrow a description of the limits on evidence in a judicial review, relying on Rule 3.22, and stated that the plenary jurisdiction of reviewing courts means the judicial review should continue to a full hearing.

The Court ultimately held that the proposed Amended Originating Application was not a proper pleading. The Court and counsel both considered whether the factual basis for the Applicant’s judicial review was, or was not, adequately provided by his Affidavit, sworn in support of the original Originating Application. The Court stated that the determination of whether the factual basis for a proceeding is adequate is conducted by way of the summary judgment procedure set out in Rules 7.2-7.3.

The Court considered the various allegations and ultimately found that the Charter interests in the underlying procedure raised a breach, presumably in the form of procedural fairness. In so finding, the Court stressed that the Applicant had not initially retained a lawyer and was, therefore, a self-represented litigant and had a special privileged status and additional procedural rights, as a distinct and vulnerable litigant. The Court permitted the filing of the Amended Originating Application and required the removal of certain paragraphs that did not accord with the Rules.