Auditor general John Doyle has run into a roadblock in his investigation of $6 million in legal fees in the sa国际传媒 Rail case, but he should go ahead with the audit.
This week, sa国际传媒 Supreme Court Justice Robert Bauman ruled that Doyle cannot have documents, including unredacted invoices, relating to the defence of Bobby Virk and Dave Basi because releasing them would violate solicitor-client privilege. The former provincial government aides pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust in relation to the privatization of sa国际传媒 Rail, and the government paid their $6 million in legal fees.
Doyle is looking into the government鈥檚 indemnity program, which pays legal fees for senior employees who get into trouble in the course of their work.
The auditor argued he couldn鈥檛 do an audit that met accounting standards without the details of what the money was spent on.
Bauman said, however, that solicitor-client privilege is a cornerstone of our democratic rights. He rightly pointed out that it belongs to the client, not to the lawyer. It protects each of us if we ever get dragged into the justice system.
But that doesn鈥檛 have to be the end of Doyle鈥檚 inquiry. Bauman accepted arguments from former auditor general Wayne Strelioff that Doyle doesn鈥檛 need all the documents to do his job as an auditor.
His probe goes back to 1999 and includes many other indemnity agreements. He has access to many documents that were supplied voluntarily, even many that would have been covered by solicitor-client privilege.
Strelioff said it鈥檚 impossible to get 鈥渁bsolute assurance鈥� in doing an audit, so the auditor tries to reduce the risk of mistaken conclusions as much as possible. If his conclusions are hampered by a lack of information, he can say so in his report.
British Columbians deserve to know whether these legal fees were justified, and, so far, the auditor general is our best chance of getting an answer.
