The SPCA is angry at the Government. Their particular concern is that the Government is establishing a tribunal to deal with allegations under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, rather than having the matters dealt with in court. You can read their entire statement here, but this is an important excerpt:
The BC SPCA says the proposed changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, introduced by the government today in Bill 24, have no benefits for animals in B.C.
“We are very disappointed to see these amendments, which we believe will make it more difficult for the BC SPCA to help animals in distress,” said Craig Daniell, chief executive officer of the BC SPCA. One of the significant changes introduced in the bill establishes the BC Farm Industry Review Board (BC FIRB) as the organization to hear appeals from citizens regarding animal welfare issues.
“We are fully in support of fairness and transparency and oversight through an appeal process,” says Daniell. “However we believe the current system is expedient and works extremely well. Our fear is that the new system adds layers of bureaucracy which will mean fewer animals may be rescued from suffering and fewer animal abusers brought to justice.”
The Government has a taste of tribunalism and they want more. Why? First and most important is that tribunals are cheap. You can skip over all sorts of rules of evidence that normally protect the integrity of the process. You can omit a prosecutor (who might think its wrong to prosecute) and simply use an adjudicator to make the decisions.
The Government can create a tribunal, write legislation that empowers it and effectively oust the jurisdiction of the court. They can restrict defences. They can choose what evidence an accused is allowed to have. They can change the rules from case to case. They can create new standards of proof. They can rely on the rule that courts hearing appeals of tribunal decisions will generally defer to findings of fact made by a tribunal. They can write legislation to restrict the right of appeal. They can collect fees to stand in the way of any appeal. They can do almost all of this without passing any legislation once they have empowered the tribunal. We call this tribunilization.
Times are tough. Tax revenue is down significantly, the economy is stagnant and in many regions the property market is in the tank. With an election just over a year away, the Government is trying to find ways to do things on the cheap.
The SPCA, to their credit, oppose the legislation. They have taken the position that this is an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy which may stand in the way of investigations. We doubt that this will be the case. Our particular concern is that fairness, transparency and oversight are the hallmarks of a court process. Fairness, transparency and oversight also cost money, and can be easily done away with by ousting the court and in-sourcing decision-making to a tribunal of the Government’s making.
We call the process of moving matters from Courts, which are transparent and fair, to tribunals the process of tribunilization. Should this be the direction our justice system takes? Do you wish to live in a society with this type of justice system?
You can read the proposed legislation here.