http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-cf/decisions/en/item/67136/index.do
Coombs v. Canada (Attorney General)[1] (March 10, 2014) was an appeal from a decision of the Prothonotary striking a notice of application as an abuse of process, being frivolous and vexatious. The court reviewed the extensive history of the underlying subject matter of this litigation (stemming from the seizure of documents in 2006 under a Criminal Code search warrant) in the Tax Court, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Federal Court. In the end, the court agreed with the Prothonotary’s decision and dismissed the appeal:
[52] With respect to the applicants’ argument that they are entitled to approach this Court for a remedy pursuant to section 24 of the Charter, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ward, I note that the applicants do not appear to appreciate that a remedy pursuant to section 24 must be based on a breach of a Charter right. Although the applicants assert that their applications differ from earlier applications because they now allege breach of Charter rights, as noted above, the applicants rely on the very same facts to support the alleged Charter breach that were found by the Tax Court of Canada to not constitute an illegal search. The Prothonotary addressed this issue and noted:
Mr. Coombs says that this matter is different because section 24(1) of the Charter is invoked and the other two Applicants were not party to the prior applications. Section 24(1) of the Charter does not help the Applicants. That section deals with remedies for a breach of Charter rights. The issue of the propriety of the search warrants and their execution has been determined in prior Court proceedings. This application is simply a variation on a well-worn theme.
[53] The applicants have not established that the decision of the Prothonotary should be set aside. Moreover, the applicants have made the same arguments before me as they made before Prothonotary Aalto and, in so doing, had yet another opportunity to raise the same issues, just as if they had a de novo review. If I had concluded that the Prothonotary erred, which I have not, and had conducted a de novo review, I would arrive at the same conclusion: that the application is an abuse of process and must be dismissed. Despite the applicants’ commitment to pursuing every possible option, repackaging or re-characterizing the same application time and time again with the same allegations that have previously been adjudicated upon will not open up new avenues of relief or yield a different result.
[1] 2014 FC 233.