The Supreme Court of Canada has handed down two decisions that uphold the authority of professional bodies in disciplining their members, and establish a standard of “reasonableness” for judicial reviews of these bodies.

The decisions released Thursday by the Supreme Court concern lawyers and doctors. But, these decisions could have implications for members of financial industry self-regulatory bodies, too, by setting the standard for courts choosing to review the disciplinary decisions of administrative tribunals.

In the Law Society of New Brunswick v. Ryan, lawyer Michael Ryan was disbarred by the law society’s disciplinary committee after lying to clients about their case, and forging a court decision. He appealed this decision and made a motion to present medical evidence to show that he was under a mental disability contributing to his misconduct. The Court of Appeal ordered that the case be reopened before the discipline committee to hear this medical evidence.

After considering the medical and psychiatric evidence, the discipline committee confirmed its earlier decision that disbarment was the appropriate sanction. The Court of Appeal allowed the Ryan’s appeal, and substituted its own sanction of indefinite suspension with conditions for reinstatement.

The Supreme Court has reversed the appeal, finding that the order of the discipline committee should be restored. The court suggested that the standard for judicial review of a professional disciplinary decision should be reasonableness, rather than merely correctness. Under that standard, a court must not interfere unless the party seeking review has positively shown that the decision, taken as a whole, was unreasonable.

The Supreme Court said, “There is nothing unreasonable about the Discipline Committee’s decision to ban a member from practising law when his repeated conduct involved an egregious departure from the rules of professional ethics and had the effect of undermining public confidence in basic legal institutions.”

The Supreme Court reached a similar conclusion in the case of Dr. Q v. College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia. In that case, an Inquiry Committee found that a doctor had taken physical and emotional advantage of one of his female patients and was guilty of infamous conduct. The Council of the College suspended the Dr. Q. from the practice of medicine for 18 months, with stringent conditions for his return to the profession.

On an appeal under the Medical Practitioners Act, the reviewing judge set aside the Inquiry Committee’s decision, disagreeing with its findings as to credibility. The Court of Appeal dismissed the College’s appeal because it could not conclude that the reviewing judge was “clearly wrong”.

The Supreme Court held that the appeal should be allowed and the order of the College restored. It ruled that, “The reviewing judge erred by applying too exacting a standard of review and substituting her own view of the evidence for that of the Committee.”

The Supreme Court concluded that, “The Court of Appeal should have corrected the reviewing judge’s error, substituted the appropriate standard of administrative review, and assessed the Committee’s decision on this basis. Judged on the proper standard of reasonableness, there was ample evidence to support the Committee’s conclusions.”