PHILLIPS v EDMONTON (POLICE SERVICE)

The Applicants sought Judicial Review of the decision not to lay charges in relation to the death of a 13-year-old boy following a group altercation at an Edmonton LRT station. The Applicants alleged bias, procedural unfairness, and unreasonableness by the Edmonton Police Service and the Crown in deciding not to charge the man involved in the boy’s death.

Justice Renke turned to Rule 3.22, which requires Judicial Review to proceed on the record before the decision maker, not on fresh evidence going to the merits of the underlying decision. The Court therefore refused to consider several Affidavits and recordings that had not been before the Police or the Crown when the decision was made, except where later material provided limited context for the information that had been considered at that time.

Justice Renke also held that Mr. Lucier, as the person who had not been charged and whose interests would be directly affected by any Order, should have been served pursuant to Rule 3.15. The Court observed that this failure would ordinarily have been fatal, but declined to dismiss the Application solely on that basis because no party had raised the issue.

The Application for Judicial Review was ultimately dismissed because the Applicants had not provided an evidentiary foundation warranting the Court’s intervention.