Full Names of Parties Now Published in HPARB Complaint Review Decisions

  • April 30, 2021
  • Lad Kucis, partner, Gardiner Roberts LLP

Historically, the names of parties in complaint reviews before the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board (HPARB) were not included on the version of the Decision and Reasons made available to the public, which appears on the legal database, canlli.org. Rather, only the initials of the parties were published.

However, on November 1, 2019, HPARB released a Practice Direction: Public Access to Proceedings, which provided that effective immediately, all HPARB decisions, including complaint reviews, will be published with the full names of the parties unless otherwise ordered by HPARB. The rationale was the identification of the parties will enhance public access to HPARB proceedings and further the principles of openness, transparency and accountability.

As set out in the Practice Direction, a party can request an order that restricts the publication of an individual’s identity (i.e. an anonymization order). In considering such a request, which must be made either before or at the complaint review, HPARB will consider the following: