Tu Thanh Ha
Toronto — Globe and Mail Update Published on Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 1:44PM EST Last updated on Friday, Nov. 13, 2009 2:09PM EST
Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino has been ordered to go back to the witness stand and pay $20,000 in costs to two officers in whose disciplinary hearing the commissioner had been subpoenaed to testify.
Commissioner Fantino had been in the unusual position of being cross-examined about allegations that he used the internal OPP disciplinary process to wage a vendetta against a high-ranking officer.
The allegations were made in the disciplinary hearing of two OPP internal affairs officers, Superintendent Ken MacDonald and Inspector Alison Jevons.
Already, the legal saga has cost nearly $500,000 in public money, according to documents that Supt. MacDonald and Insp. Jevons obtained through Freedom of Information requests, said their lawyer, Julian Falconer.
The bill is assumed by the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services, an OPP spokesman said.
Commissioner Fantino’s cross-examination had been halted after he alleged that the adjudicator in the disciplinary case, retired judge Leonard Montgomery, was biased.
But in a unanimous ruling today, three judges of the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed the commissioner’s claim.
“The events in this case fall far short of the type of conduct that would give rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias,” the judgment said.
The court ordered the commissioner awarded $20,000 in legal costs for the two officers.
According to testimony at the disciplinary case, Commissioner Fantino wrongly suspected Supt. MacDonald of leaking information to local municipal politicians.
Mr. Falconer alleged in court filings that, as a result , the commissioner pursued a vendetta against Supt. MacDonald by charging him and Insp. Jevons in an unrelated disciplinary matter relating to their investigation of another officer’s acts in a domestic dispute.