- Parties: The applicants were Jeremiah Jost, Edward Cornell, Vincent Gircys, and Harold Ristau. The respondent was the Governor in Council, His Majesty in Right of Canada, the Attorney General of Canada, and the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

- Subject Matter: Four judicial review applications under ss. 18 and 18.1 of the Federal Courts Act, 1985 challenged the Governor in Council’s decision to declare a public order emergency and to approve additional measures to end disruptive protests in Ottawa and other locations in Canada.

- Ruling: The court dismissed Jeremiah Jost’s and Harold Ristau’s applications for lack of standing to seek judicial review. The court recognized that Edward Cornell and Vincent Gircys had direct standing to challenge the decision. The court found only one reasonable interpretation of ss. 3 and 17 of the Emergencies Act, 1985 and s. 2(c) of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, 1985. The court determined that the applicants established that the legal constraints on the Governor in Council’s discretion to declare a public order emergency were not satisfied. The court concluded that the decision to issue the Proclamation Declaring a Public Order Emergency, SOR/2022-20 lacked the hallmarks of reasonableness – justification, transparency, and intelligibility – and was unjustified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints.

- Date: The hearing was set on Apr. 3, 2023. The court released its decision on Jan. 29, 2024.

- Venue: This was a federal case before the Federal Court.

- Amount: No financial award was specified.