Inquiry's secret applications, secret discussions with police must end...

INQUIRY’S SECRET APPLICATIONS,
secret discussions with police must end, said the BC Civil Liberties Association which is demanding the end to what the organization describes as “secret applications for standing and secret discussions between police, government and staff of the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry.”  The complaint came after another police officer, with two lawyers, was granted “full” standing in the inquiry, which gives his legal team the right to cross examine any witnesses. The application from the police officer’s team was heard, considered and decided on by the Commission without notice to family members or organizations interested in police accountability, women’s rights or Indigenous rights, said the BCCLA. BCCLA, Amnesty International Canada, the Assembly of First Nations, and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, along with a coalition of 10 women’s organizations, have only been given “limited” standing and can only ask questions with the permission of the Commissioner. The BCCLA said there have been a series of “non-transparent decisions involving the police, the police union, the Criminal Justice Branch and the Commission, many of which remain unresolved,” including discussion and circulation of the transcript of Commissioner Wally Oppal’s phone message to former Attorney General Barry Penner; the terms of the document disclosure agreement between the Commission, the RCMP and the VPD, and what information will and will not be disclosed to all parties; and the preparation of an expert witness list and a witness list by the Commission, despite repeated requests for access to that list by participant groups.