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The advocacy group that unsuccessfully sued the city over its removal of homeless encampments has been ordered to pay a portion of the city’s legal costs, a judge has ruled.
In a written ruling released March 14, Court of King’s Bench Justice Jonathan Martin awarded the City of Edmonton $11,500 from the Coalition for Justice and Human Rights, which had unsuccessfully tried to sue the city over the encampment policy.
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Martin had previously ruled in January that the coalition does not have “public interest standing” in the case, quashing its request for an emergency injunction stopping encampment removals as well as killing the broader lawsuit.
The City of Edmonton had been seeking $25,000 in costs to partially cover a roughly $42,000 legal bill, balancing “the resources required to defend the litigation, the public interest nature of the litigation, and the coalition’s not-for-profit status,” Martin’s ruling states.
In his ruling, Martin weighed a number of factors, including the public interest and whether this case was potentially a test case in Canadian law.
“I find that the proceedings did bring with them significant regional and national attention regarding the plight of unhoused Edmontonians and unhoused persons throughout Canada,” Martin stated.
“I also find that the coalition was partially successful in that the filing of the action secured a negotiated ‘interim interim injunction.’”
While Martin didn’t find that the case raised any novel issues in law, he did indicate that it could be classified as a test case.
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“Had the coalition been granted public interest standing, this matter would have been precedential in addressing the legality of the City of Edmonton’s policy on dismantling the encampments, including the impact of the policy on the Charter rights of unhoused persons,” Martin stated, adding that there hasn’t been a decision as to whether the city’s encampment policy complies with the Charter.
The city had also sought to have $2,000 in costs associated with the emergency injunction dealt with as part of this matter. However, Martin ruled that those costs should be dealt with by the judge who handled the injunction.
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