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VAVILOV - JR - SOR - Rule of Law Exceptions - Tribunal Boundaries. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov
In Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov (SCC, 2024) the Supreme Court of Canada revises the law of 'standard of review' ('SOR') for judicial reviews (JR). 'Standards of review' indicate the degree of deference that applies to the decisions of the lower court/tribunal/body - either on a JR or an appeal, when the reviewing court is performing their review task. This may surprise some non-lawyers. When a court performs a review (either JR or appeal), they don't ask whether the lower body was correct in all respects (broken down into: facts, law, and mixed questions of fact and law) - they don't repeat the lower body's task in it's entirety - rather they follow the applicable standard of review, or of 'deference'. The Vavilov (SCC) case revises and explains this JR 'standard of review' law as of 2019.
Here the court considers the 'jurisdictional boundaries question' exception to the JR SOR reasonableness:(3) Questions Regarding the Jurisdictional Boundaries Between Two or More Administrative Bodies
[63] Finally, the rule of law requires that the correctness standard be applied in order to resolve questions regarding the jurisdictional boundaries between two or more administrative bodies: Dunsmuir, at para. 61. One such question arose in Regina Police Assn. Inc. v. Regina (City) Board of Police Commissioners, 2000 SCC 14, [2000] 1 S.C.R. 360, in which the issue was the jurisdiction of a labour arbitrator to consider matters of police discipline and dismissal that were otherwise subject to a comprehensive legislative regime. Similarly, in Quebec (Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse) v. Quebec (Attorney General), 2004 SCC 39, [2004] 2 S.C.R. 185, the Court considered a jurisdictional dispute between a labour arbitrator and the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal.
[64] Administrative decisions are rarely contested on this basis. Where they are, however, the rule of law requires courts to intervene where one administrative body has interpreted the scope of its authority in a manner that is incompatible with the jurisdiction of another. The rationale for this category of questions is simple: the rule of law cannot tolerate conflicting orders and proceedings where they result in a true operational conflict between two administrative bodies, pulling a party in two different and incompatible directions: see British Columbia Telephone Co., at para. 80, per McLachlin J. (as she then was), concurring. Members of the public must know where to turn in order to resolve a dispute. As with general questions of law of central importance to the legal system as a whole, the application of the correctness standard in these cases safeguards predictability, finality and certainty in the law of administrative decision making. Note that the three JR SOR 'rule of law' exceptions are for 'constitutional, 'central importance to the legal system' and 'jurisdictional boundaries' questions - other exceptions are grounded on other principles.
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