Lawyers for four Mounties involved in a fatal 2007 confrontation with Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski have gone to court to question the right of a provincial public inquiry to make findings of misconduct against them.
The issue is to be the focus of a hearing on Friday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Thomas Braidwood, commissioner for the ongoing inquiry, has said he may eventually make findings of misconduct against the four officers who attended when Mr. Dziekanski began acting erratically at the international arrivals area of Vancouver International Airport on Oct. 14, 2007.
Reg Harris, lawyer for one of the officers, said he wants to clarify Mr. Braidwood's authority.
"There's a petition with respect to clarification on some of the jurisdiction that the inquiry has," he said. "That's primarily what we're trying to do."
He said lawyers for each officer are taking their own approach to the matter. "The positions are generally the same with slight factual distinctions," he said.
"My view is the commissioner does have a scope in some circumstances in this matter to find misconduct. There are issues with respect to particularizations of notice of potential misconduct, and there are issues as to whether or not he can find misconduct in all areas where notice has been provided so some areas yes. Not all areas."
The four officers have testified at the inquiry, which has stood down pending closing submissions later this month.
The Crown has ruled out charges against the officers.
Mr. Dziekanski, a 40-year-old labourer moving to Canada to live with his mother in Kamloops, died after he was tasered five times by the officers during a confrontation that also saw the Mounties wrestle with him as they restrained him. They have said they feared Mr. Dziekanski, exhausted after travelling to Canada and becoming lost in the airport, because he threatened them with a stapler. The incident has sparked ongoing questions about the police use of stun guns.
Ian Bailey