The Plaintiff, Mr. Stephen, appealed an Order requiring him to serve the Alberta Labour Relations Board with his Application for Judicial Review of an Alberta Human Rights Commission decision. The Appeal was dismissed.

Rule 3.15 requires an Application for Judicial Review be served on any person “directly affected” by it. The Court rejected Mr. Stephen’s submissions that only those who participated in an administrative board’s decision can be “affected” by an Application to judicially review it and that the Labour Relations Board was not “affected” as it did not participate in the proceedings. It did so having found that there was no authority for such Rule and there were reported decisions contrary to it: Yuill v Alberta (Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission), 2016 ABQB 369 at paras 63, 75; ENMAX Corporation v Alberta (Labour Relations Board), 2018 ABQB 431 at para 12.

The Court commented that participation in an administrative body’s decision does not necessarily determine who is affected by a Judicial Review of that decision. The question in every case is whether a person will be affected by the Application for Judicial Review, not their involvement in prior administrative proceedings.