Lessons from Lauzon: The Importance of Justified and Coherent Reasons
The Ontario Court of Appeal recently reiterated the expectation that administrative decision makers’ written reasons be justified, intelligible, and transparent. Written reasons that fall short of this risk being found to be unreasonable on review. In this blog, we provide an overview of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s reasoning in Lauzon v. Ontario (Justices of the Peace Review Council) as it relates to the importance of justified and coherent reasons, and explain the standard that administrative decision makers are expected to meet in relation to their written reasons.
Outcome of Case in Brief
In Lauzon, the Ontario Court of Appeal (the “Court”) ruled that JP Lauzon, who had been removed from office as a Justice of the Peace in 2020, should be reinstated to her position, but would be required to serve a 30-day suspension.
In 2016, JP Lauzon wrote an article that was “sharply critical” of the operation of bail courts and the conduct of Crown prosecutors.[1] The article was published in the National Post, and prompted complaints from three senior Crown Attorneys about JP Lauzon to the Justices of the Peace Review Council (the “Council”). In 2018, after an investigation pursuant to the Justices of the Peace Act, the Council’s Complaints Committee ordered a formal hearing. The Hearing Panel (the “Panel”) unanimously held that JP Lauzon had committed judicial misconduct. The majority of the Panel members recommended that JP Lauzon be removed from office in order to restore public confidence in the administration of justice, while one dissenting member recommended that JP Lauzon be reprimanded and face a 30-day suspension without pay.[2] The Court allowed the appeal in part and substituted the disposition of the dissenting Panel member, ordering that JP Lauzon be reprimanded and suspended for 30 days.
Vavilov and the Standard of Review
On appeal, the standard of review for the Panel’s decision was that of reasonableness, meaning that the question facing the Court of Appeal was whether the Panel’s decisions about JP Lauzon’s conduct were reasonable.
In 2019, the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the law on standard of review and provided guidance on the application of this reasonableness standard in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov. The reasonableness approach to reviewing a decision is concerned with both the administrative decision maker’s reasoning process and its outcome.[3] The majority in Vavilov stressed that where written reasons are provided by an administrative decision maker, those reasons must be “justified, intelligible and transparent”, writing that it is “unacceptable” for an administrative decision maker to provide parties with formal reasons that fail to justify its decision.[4] Decisions will be found to be unreasonable in two circumstances:
Where there are “failures of rationality internal to the reasoning process.”
Where a decision is “untenable in light of the relevant factual and legal constraints that bear on it.”[5]
To avoid failing on the first count, the decision must be based on an internally coherent reasoning that is both rational and logical. To avoid failing on the second count, the decision must be justified in relation to the relevant law and facts.
The Court’s Determination in Lauzon
The Panel rendered two decisions: a merits decision, and a disposition decision. While the Court in Lauzon found that the Panel’s conclusion in the merits decision that JP Lauzon committed judicial misconduct was reasonable, the Court pointed to many errors in the Panel’s reasons in the disposition decision, rendering the decision unreasonable. The Court focused its assessment on the reasonableness of the disposition decision and found that the reasons provided by the Panel were not inherently coherent, rational, and justified.
One example of the flawed reasoning of the majority of the Panel that the Court pointed to was its finding that JP Lauzon is irremediably biased against Crown Attorneys. The Court determined that the finding of an “appearance of bias” by the Panel in the merits decision was significantly amplified in the disposition reasons. This amplified finding was unreasonable.[6] The Court found that the Panel, in approaching the case’s evidence, consistently decontextualized aspects of the case: it did not take a holistic approach to JP Lauzon’s article; its articulation of her misconduct evolved throughout the decisions; the Panel did not seriously consider JP Lauzon’s assertions about problems in the bail system; the Panel discounted JP Lauzon’s positive motivation in writing the article; and the Panel was not even-handed in its approach to the evidence.[7]
The Court noted that the Panel’s decontextualized approach does not accord with the fully contextual approach that is necessary under Vavilov.[8] The majority in Vavilov stressed the importance of context, writing that what is reasonable “will always depend on the constraints imposed by the legal and factual context of the particular decision under review.”[9] This decontextualized approach to the evidence was then carried forward by the Panel in their reasoning, resulting in an amplified finding of bias in the disposition reasons, which the Court found to be unreasonable.
Similarly, the Court found that the Panel’s written reasons were lacking in that they did not adequately consider the effect that the disposition would have on JP Lauzon.[10] The Panel did not adequately engage with precedents in assessing the disposition, which it was required to do under Vavilov.[11] Furthermore, the Court pointed out that the Panel was required to consider both aggravating and mitigating factors, which are set out in s. 17.3 of the Justices of the Peace Review Council Procedures Document.[12] The Court noted that it is both “telling and unusual that the majority [of the Panel] did not identify a single mitigating factor in JP Lauzon’s favour.”[13] Without the context of the precedents and consideration of the aggravating and mitigating factors, the Court determined that Panel’s assessment of the seriousness of JP Lauzon’s misconduct was not reasonable.
As a final example, while the Court noted that the Panel did not err in taking the Doré approach in applying s. 1 of the Charter rather than the test established in R. v. Oakes, the disposition decision did not engage in the “robust proportionality review” that is required under Doré.[14] The Court noted that the Panel did not undertake a full Doré analysis but instead simply stated that it would be “guided by Charter principles” when making its findings.[15] The Court warned that the Doré approach should not tempt administrative decision makers to ignore key steps in the required analysis. In the case of JP Lauzon, the rights limitation analysis was complex and involved many competing public interests, and the Panel therefore “had to do more.”[16]
Key Takeaway
One of the key takeaways from Lauzon for administrative decision makers is the importance of written reasons that are justified, intelligible, and transparent. Decisions that do not adequately consider the context of the case in the way demanded by Vavilov and that ignore key steps in the required analysis of the conduct risk being found as unreasonable on review. Administrative decision makers must take care to ensure their written reasons adequately justify the decision they have reached, and it is integral that decision-makers are seen as both rational and fair. Lauzon demonstrates that a decision maker will not discharge its obligation to consider precedents, Charter values, or factors by simply identifying them; engaging with these requires a detailed and robust analysis of their impact on the decision.
[6] Lauzon, at paras. 51-52.
[7] Lauzon, at paras. 59-60.
