JOHN’S, NL — Newfoundland and Labrador residents who believe they have been victims of police misconduct have just six months to file a complaint. Experts say that time frame is “grossly inadequate” and that the police complaints system in this province is designed primarily to protect officers.
“Newfoundland and Labrador is way behind, in Canada and around the world, in police oversight,” said Temitope Oriola, a criminologist at the University of Alberta.
“Six months, to be very clear … is completely inadequate,” said Oriola, who served as a special advisor to the Alberta government during the review of that province’s Police Services Act. “Many complainants, who are often vulnerable members of our society, may not have even processed what has happened to them at that point.”
The six-month delay is at the centre of a decision last week by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary’s independent police complaints commission, which cancelled a hearing ordered to investigate the police detention of a Labrador man over social media posts in 2015.
Andrew Abbass was committed by police to a psychiatric ward at a western Newfoundland hospital for six days after posting on Twitter about a fatal shooting earlier this month. The man killed in that shooting also posted messages on Twitter that alarmed authorities.
“How about this NL premier? I’m going to bring down the Confederation and execute politicians,” Abbass wrote on Twitter. “Ready to get shot, coward?”
Despite his six-day detention, Mr Abbass was never charged with anything and he was never diagnosed with any mental health issues.
In a decision dated Thursday, an adjudicator for the independent police complaints commission said it would be in the public interest to hold a hearing into Abbass’ detention. However, Whalen points out that Abbass did not file a complaint against the officer who detained him within the six-month time limit set out in the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Act.
Mr Abbass said he did not file a complaint until more information about his detention became available. Those details were revealed at a public inquiry opened in 2017 into the fatal shooting about which he had written on Twitter.
“Eliminate limitation periods”
Professor Oriola pointed to Wales and England, where “statutes of limitations” for complaints against police no longer even exist. Some Canadian provinces still have time limits, although Newfoundland and Labrador’s six-month cap is among the shortest, the criminologist said. In Alberta, citizens have a year to file a complaint.
In Ontario, they only have six months, but complaints of significant public interest will be reviewed even if they exceed that time limit, Oriola said. So Mr. Abbass’ case, for example, could have gone forward in Ontario, given Commissioner Whalen’s comments about its “public interest,” the criminologist noted.
In Quebec, a complaint to the Police Ethics Commissioner must be filed no later than one year after the date of the event “or knowledge of this event.”
Professor Oriola believes that every province should follow England and Wales and remove these limitation periods altogether.
Overall, he said, the limits add another layer of obscurity to the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary’s public complaints system, which is already “incredibly opaque and outdated.” The convoluted system will only discourage people with legitimate complaints from coming forward, and thus foster impunity for officers who deserve scrutiny, he said.
“This simply does not meet the basics of effective policing in the 21st century,” Oriola said. “Even by Canadian standards, which are not great for police oversight, the complaint processes in Newfoundland and Labrador are significantly behind.”
St. John’s lawyer Lynn Moore agrees, adding that limitation defences act like “Get Out of Jail Free” cards in Monopoly. She said the six-month time limit to file a complaint against police is particularly incredible, given the power imbalance between a citizen and a police officer, and the “byzantine” nature of the process for filing complaints against police officers.
“We have had a very serious case of someone being deprived of their liberty for an improper purpose, and that person is not in a position to complain about the officers who made that arrest or the senior officers who may have ordered it,” Ms Moore said of Mr Abbass’ detention.
“This process, which was specifically put in place to allow citizens to obtain redress, offers no recourse. So it seems to be a failure.”
