SQLFusion - Cornwall Police Service balking at disclosure od documents at Cornwall Public Inquiry

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

09 June 2006

Cornwall Standard Freeholder

09 June 2006

Cops balking at document disclosure

Terri Saunders

Thursday, June 08, 2006 - 10:00

Local News - City cops say many of the internal documents being asked for by the Cornwall Public Inquiry fall under attorney-client privilege and should not be disclosed.

On Thursday of next week, attorneys for the Cornwall Community Police Service are expected to bring forth a motion asking for an amendment to the commission's rules of practice and procedure in order to protect those documents from becoming public.

The motion was supposed to be heard this week, but got pushed back to next week after other matters ran longer than expected.

In a motion application filed with the inquiry, Peter Manderville, an attorney representing CCPS at the commission, laid out the reasons why the documents should be protected. In all, the application lists 194 documents dating back to 1985 including correspondence between the police service, its members and a variety of legal experts.

They include handwritten notes, timesheets, memoranda, action memos, letters, excerpts of meeting minutes and draft statements of defence.

Named as either author or recipient are former police chief Claude Shaver, former police chief Anthony Repa, Judge Colin McKinnon, who was working as a lawyer at the time the documents were prepared, the Cornwall Police Services Board, former deputy police chief Ron Laverty, former Cornwall Mayor Brian Sylvester, current deputy police chief Danny Aikman.

In facts provided in support of the motion, Manderville says some of the documents relate to legal advice provided to management and members of the service with respect to legal action taken by a complainant in March 1994.

There are also documents which deal with legal advice tendered in response to an action brought against the force by former police constable Perry Dunlop in July 1995.

Under rule 31 of the inquiry's rules of practice and procedure, the commission compels all parties to surrender "all relevant documents" and where there is an objection to the disclosure of documents the commission expects them to be submitted in their original, unedited form in order to be reviewed by commission counsel as to the validity of the privilege claim.

"(The) rule constitutes an unreasonable search and seizure contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," Manderville writes in his motion application. "If commission counsel wishes to challenge the privilege claimed over one or more of the documents on the list, and the Cornwall police and the commission counsel cannot agree as to whether the documents in questioned are privileged, the proper and appropriate procedure that minimally impairs solicitor-client privilege is to seal all documents and submit the documents to a judge of the Superior Court of Justice . . . for such a purpose to make the determination."

The motion is being supported by some of the parties at the inquiry, including the Alexandria-Cornwall Roman Catholic Diocese.

In a letter submitted by church attorney David Sherriff-Scott on Dec. 13, 2005 to commission counsel, he set out his reasons for why some documents should be protected and not disclosed.

"There should be no obligation to produce privileged documents," Sherriff-Scott wrote. "There are parties with standing, such as my client, which are presently engaged in litigation.

"A requirement to produce privileged documents would be significantly prejudicial to their interests."

Sherriff-Scott also suggested documents which may be protected by solicitor-client privilege should be kept from public dissemination until a decision on their inclusion is made.

"In the event any determination of the question of the application of privilege is to be undertaken," he wrote, "any document for which privilege is claimed should be treated as confidential and not in the public record until any such ruling or appeal . . . is adjudicated."