Legal fees paid despite surprise guilty pleas.
by Bill Tieleman
Stonewalling is a good term to use to describe this situation overall and in this case.
– John van Dongen, B.C. Conservative MLA
How did two former ministerial aides charged with breach of trust and fraud get their $6 million legal fees paid by the BC Liberal government despite pleading guilty in the BC Legislature raid case?
We may never know, despite the provincial independent Auditor-General John Doyle attempting to find out through a BC Supreme Court application heard for five days last week.
And the hallmark of the lengthy BC Legislature raid case — delay — emerged again. Doyle’s application, first put off from June to September, is now recessing until early December for final arguments, meaning Chief Justice Robert Bauman is unlikely to make a ruling until 2013.
Government employees facing charges can have their legal defence bills covered under a process called indemnification — but only if they are acquitted.
The issue arises from one of the province’s biggest political scandals ever — BC Liberal government political aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk charged with leaking confidential documents in the $1 billion privatization sale of BC Rail in 2003 to lobbyists for a losing bidder in exchange for money and other benefits.
Government employees facing charges can have their legal defence bills covered under a process called indemnification — but only if they are acquitted.
But Basi and Virk made a sudden surprise guilty plea in October 2010 ending their trial, after hearing testimony from just two of an expected 40 witnesses — including former and current top politicians and staff, possibly even Premier Christy Clark and former premier Gordon Campbell.
Basi and Virk had strongly protested their innocence since the case exploded with an unprecedented police raid on the BC Legislature in December 2003 to gather evidence.
Doyle’s efforts to obtain the controversial Basi-Virk legal billings and those of other government officials whose costs were indemnified since 1999 are being strongly opposed in court, primarily on the basis that solicitor-client privilege blocks his access.
Outside a courtroom where government is funding up to eight lawyers to argue various sides of the case, John van Dongen, a former BC Liberal solicitor general who quit the party, was “very frustrated.”
“There’s a fair question whether this issue should be in this courtroom at all and whether it’s properly motivated,” van Dongen said in an exclusive interview. “There’s an incredible effort to avoid accountability and transparency to taxpayers — there’s a problem here.”
About Bill Tieleman
Bill Tieleman, president of West Star Communications, is one of BC's best known political commentators and communicators. Read political commentary from Bill every Tuesday in 24 hours, Vancouver's free weekday newspaper (also online) and in The Tyee — BC's award-winning online magazine.
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