3 Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Best Practices for Administrative Tribunals When Publishing Decisions. Updated February 2025. Administrative tribunals in Saskatchewan include boards, commissions, appeal committees and other administrative bodies. The government creates them to carry out decisionmaking responsibilities as part of Saskatchewan’s legal system. In so doing, they make decisions that affect the public. They may: • Make decisions on individual rights or resolve disputes between parties. • Have a regulatory, administrative or policy-making role. • Be a quasi-judicial body that carries out its decision-making similar to the courts. Administrative tribunals differ from courts in that they: • May be subject to Saskatchewan’s freedom of information and protection of privacy laws. • Often have citizens appear without legal representation and without knowledge of applicable privacy laws. • Are not typically dealing with issues where there can be penal consequences. Privacy Laws that May Apply to Administrative Tribunals To be accountable when publishing a decision or making it public, an administrative tribunal may want to apply the open court principle. While courts are not subject to access and privacy laws, administrative tribunals in Saskatchewan may be subject to one or more of the following access and privacy laws: • The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP), which applies to government institutions (e.g., ministries, Crown corporations, government agencies, etc.). • The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (LA FOIP), which applies to local authorities (e.g., school boards, libraries, the police, rural municipalities, cities, towns, etc.). • The Health Information Protection Act (HIPA), which applies to trustees. Organizations that fall within the scope of these laws are required to collect, use and disclose personal information/personal health information in accordance with the applicable access and privacy law. An administrative tribunal should know and understand its statutory authority to collect, use and disclose personal information /personal health information.
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