Procedural fairness and expediency are often competing concepts when it comes to whether an interim order should be imposed to protect the public while a disciplinary investigation and hearing are pending.
An Alberta Court balanced these concepts in Basaraba v College of Chiropractors, 2025 ABKB 176 (CanLII). The chiropractic regulator received information that a chiropractor had inappropriately touched patients without informed consent and, in fact, faced criminal charges for sexual assault relating to one of them. An interim order was issued requiring supervision by another regulated health professional. The regulator received additional information that the chiropractor may not have fully complied with the supervision order and that more sexual assault charges had been filed. The regulator gave notice that it was seeking an interim suspension but declined to provide the chiropractor with any particulars about the alleged non-compliance so as not to compromise the pending investigation. An interim suspension was issued relying heavily on the non-compliance concern.
The Court set aside the interim suspension for lack of procedural fairness: “the allegation that he breached the supervision condition was devoid of every detail that would have allowed him to prepare an intelligent response.”
The Court accepted that in order to protect the public interim orders must be imposed expeditiously:
… I do not find or suggest that he was entitled to the level particularity or disclosure that would be required in advance of a final disciplinary hearing. Rather, I find that the Applicant was entitled to that basic level of particularity that would have enabled him to prepare a meaningful and intelligent response to the allegations….
I have also taken into account the legitimate, and indeed, paramount concerns of the Complaints Director and the Committee respecting the protection of the public. Those concerns were acute given the criminal charges that had been laid against the Applicant. Had I been convinced by the Respondent that the Complaints Director’s vagueness was necessary to protect the public, then my conclusion might well have been different. But since it is readily apparent that sufficient particularity could have been achieved by the introduction of a few additional words or sentences, I have not been so convinced.
While the Court also accepted that, at times, disclosure of particulars can be limited in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation, that requirement had not been established in this case:
Further, the Respondent’s professed reliance upon “good investigative practice” rings hollow given that redacted copies of the underlying reports were provided to the Applicant less than 30 days after the suspension was imposed, and before any investigative interview had been conducted.
The Court indicated that it was open to the regulator to recommence the interim suspension process, so long as a fair procedure was followed.