Thank you for coming either remotely or in person today.
Many of the counsel that we've had appear before us have sort of had a uniformity of view with respect to many of the issues. One of the lawyers that was invited, Ronald Ellis, was unable to attend, but he did submit a paper. Some of his positions go against yours. I want to flesh out some of his logic. Maybe you can help comment on it.
With respect to the complaints process and the independence of it, he's actually in favour of it. In paragraph 19 of his submission, he says:
I am impressed with the internal complaints process that was established by the IRB in December 2017 and it seems to me to be the most sensible to allow it to function for some period of time, and to consider how it might be adjusted after that performance experience has been evaluated.
It's primarily for three reasons that he says it's good. Maybe he does so in comparison to an independent process. He says:
If every adjudicator could be exposed to a public, external review of their personal performance...that would be destructive of the institutional morale and team environment....
That's his first one. His second comment is that “the proposed external complaints process...has a number of obvious problems of its own. Who, for example, would administer it...?” How would it be administered? What would the cost be, especially when there have been only 170 complaints over the last 10 years and only 21 founded complaints? I think even last year all of them were against not the GIC-appointed folks, but the government civil service-appointed folks.
Then I guess the third point that Mr. Ellis makes is that the IRB chair, who is making the decision—and most of the complaints are, “Well, the chair...”—is actually the person who most wants the IRB to be functioning and to be seen to be functioning. That's the chair's job. The chair is not biased. In fact, the chair's interests are wholly aligned with the preservation of the administration of justice.
Maybe you can comment first, Ms. Robinson, and then you, Ms. findlay, on why you feel that Mr. Ellis' comments are valid or invalid.