Raj Anand, WeirFoulds partner and longstanding member of the Law Society Tribunal and Gary Yee (previous chair of three Ontario tribunals), discuss the concerns raised by Tribunal Watch Ontario regarding the recent Ontario cabinet appointments to senior leadership positions at Tribunals Ontario, the newly created cluster of 14 justice tribunals.
Since June 2020, the current government has appointed four full-time associate chairs to Tribunals Ontario and three of them have strong connections with the governing party.
In their article, Raj and Gary clarify that Tribunals exercise judicial functions — the appointed adjudicators assess the evidence and apply the law; they do not implement government policy. With this current pattern, and many more adjudicator vacancies being filled this year, the politicization of Ontario’s tribunals is a serious and growing concern. Strong steps must be taken to protect public confidence in the integrity and independence of adjudicative tribunals.
Tribunal Watch Ontario is a public interest organization with a mission to promote tribunal independence and access to justice. The organization is calling for an independent review of the recent appointments and reappointments processes for Ontario tribunals.
Click here to read the article, “Politicization of senior appointments alarms Tribunal Watch Ontario”.