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Forms - Irregular RCP - Refused. Ye v Toronto District School Board
In Ye v Toronto District School Board (Div Court, 2023) the Divisional Court considers a JR applicant's efforts at completing their JR application form, here in the course of a successful motion to quash:[13] The Applicant filed a notice of application for judicial review on November 28, 2022. At a case management conference, the Applicant was directed to amend the notice of application for judicial review to state the decision of which review was sought, the grounds for review and the relief sought. The Applicant was also advised that a document filed with the notice of application entitled “Description of the Decisions” was not a proper pleading and would not form part of the notice of application for judicial review. The Description of Decisions details the Applicant’s objections to the Policy and the Board’s By-law regarding reconsideration. The document also attaches screen shots and redacted email correspondence with the TDSB.
[14] On January 13, 2023, the Applicant filed an Amended Notice of Application for Judicial Review (the “Application”). The Applicant included an “Amended Description of Decisions” dated January 13, 2023. In the Application, the Applicant seeks the following relief:(1) For an admission to any Ontario secondary school or program, specifically to any one at the Toronto District School Board (the “TDSB”) in this Judicial Review Application,
(a) Declare or affirm any Ontario prospective or present secondary student’ statutory right to attend the school or program for secondary education, for any of the valid purposes and subject to only the specific conditions, as enumerated in the Ontario Education Act;
(b) Prohibit all extraneous considerations or restrictions, including but not limited to residence, race, gender, the number of schools or programs a student is allowed to apply for, etc., except the conditions or restrictions explicitly provisioned in the Education Act. This includes but is not limited to,
(i) Prohibition of 50% reservation of the TOPS or MaCS program’s seats for the local area; and
(ii) Invalidation of any school board policies that enforce any extraneous considerations or restrictions, including but not limited to removal of the cap for the number of schools or programs a student may apply for;
(c) Restore the school principal’s statutory power at the school level to make the (initial) admission decision;
(d) Allow the school principal at their discretion to open and conduct an additional application and admission process until July 31, 2023 for School Year 2023-2024, subject to only “accommodation” restrictions as decided by the school, and without the interference or intervention from the school board; and
(e) The Ministry of Education shall instruct all Ontario school boards to follow the above remedies;
2) For the TDSB Bylaws,
(a) Prohibit any provision that directly or indirectly restricts or limits a Board of Trustees’ full power to reconsider or make decisions from the starting of its term; and
(b) Order that any key revision in the Bylaws must be fully and well informed to all the Trustees of the Board before voting. [15] Despite having been advised by the Court that the Description of Decisions was not a proper pleading and did not form part of the Notice of Application, the Applicant also filed an Amended Description of Decisions. Although the Applicant filed an affidavit on the TDSB’s motion to quash, he did not include the Amended Description of Decisions or attached documents as exhibits to his affidavit. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this motion, the TDSB does not object to this Court taking the Amended Description of Decisions into consideration to shed light on the nature of the application for judicial review.
[16] Despite multiple case management conferences and directions, the basis for the application for judicial review remains opaque. While the Applicant maintains that he does not challenge the Policy, in the Application and Amended Description of Decisions, he objects to admission process because it considers “extraneous considerations” of race, gender, and local area residency, which he states are not authorized under the Education Act, R.S.O. 1990, E.2. While the Applicant attempts to distinguish the admission process from the Policy, the admission process is guided by the Policy. The Applicant also challenges s. 5.15.25 of the TDSB’s By-laws, which state that a previous decision of the board cannot be reconsidered for at least 12 months after the decision was made, unless a two-thirds majority votes in favour of reconsideration. . Tewari v. Singh
In Tewari v. Singh (Ont CA, 2023) the Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal (advanced by an unrepresented party) based on an irregular RCP form - ie. a "supplementary default judgment motion", which is not anticipated in the RCP forms or the Rules:[5] The appellant re-attended before the motion judge on a motion styled as a “supplementary default judgment motion”. The respondent then brought a cross‑motion under Rule 59.06(1) seeking clarification that the motion judge’s intention had been to dismiss the action.
[6] On the reattendance of the parties, the motion judge granted the cross‑motion, explaining that it had been her intention to dismiss the action when she dismissed the original default judgment motion.
[7] The appellant appeals on the basis that the motion judge erred in dismissing the action.
[8] We do not agree. The appellant has not identified any reversible error in the motion judge’s reasons.
[9] The “supplementary default judgment motion” was not in accordance with the Rules of Civil Procedure and constitutes an abuse of process. The motion judge made no error in not acceding to it.
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