The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Manitoba Court of Appeal has sided with HBMS after a lengthy legal challenge stemming from the provincial inquest into the 2000 smelter explosion. The court ruled this week that the judge presiding over the inquest does have the jurisdiction to order that potentially pertinent interview transcripts be turned over. The interviews were conducted with potential inquest witnesses by Marty Minuk, Crown counsel in the probe. In February, the Honourable Robert Cummings, the inquest judge, dismissed HBMS's request to have the transcripts made available to all parties with standing in the inquest. The company lawyer then appealed the decision to the Court of Queen's Bench, where Justice Brenda Keyser dismissed the application on the grounds that Judge Cummings did not have the jurisdiction to to make such an order. Now the Court of Appeals has ruled Judge Cummings does have the proper jurisdiction, sending the matter back to the Court of Queen's Bench, which will review the merits of the application. Justice Keyser "did not express her view on the merits of the application before her; instead, she ruled only on the question of jurisdiction," the Court of Appeal wrote in its ruling. " We do not have her views on the merits, nor were the merits argued before us. Had it been otherwise, we could have disposed of both the jurisdictional argument and an appeal on the merits. In the circumstances, I would allow the appeal and return the matter to the court below for a determination on the merits of the application." The inquest, which has been held in the Flin Flon Courtroom in the Barrow Provincial Building, is not expected to resume until next year. The 2000 explosion resulted in the death of one employee and the injury of several others.
