The Crown brought an application before the Superior Court of Justice to quash subpoenas issued by the defendant for three witnesses in an ongoing Provincial Offences Act trial.
The court confirmed that a Justice of the Peace lacks jurisdiction to quash a subpoena, which must be done via certiorari in the Superior Court, though a trial justice may excuse a witness whose evidence is irrelevant.
Applying the test of whether the witnesses were likely to give material evidence, the court quashed the subpoenas for the conservation authority's head and solicitor, finding their proposed evidence irrelevant or a fishing expedition.
The court declined to quash the subpoena for the hydrology expert who had already testified, leaving it to the trial justice to manage his recall and document production.
