On Tuesday, 4 January 1910, at the courthouse in Victoria’s Bastion Square, the judges of the new Court of Appeal of the province of British Columbia — Chief Justice James A. Macdonald and Judges Paulus Irving, Archer Martin, and William Galliher — assembled for the new court’s first sitting as directed by an Order-in-Council under the recently proclaimed Act Constituting a Court of Appeal and Declaring Its Jurisdiction (Court of Appeal Act).¹ The first case they heard was R. v. Prasiloski, which concerned a decision of County Court judge Frederick W. Howay in New Westminster.² In September 1909, one Prasiloski had accused some neighbours of stealing his red cow, and on his information they had been charged with theft. Prasiloski’s subsequent accounts of the alleged theft were so inconsistent that the charge was dismissed at the preliminary hearing in Magistrates’ Court. Prasiloski was then charged with perjury and convicted by Judge Howay.³ The appeal court hearing turned on a point of law: had Judge Howay acted correctly in admitting oral evidence from the magistrate about Prasiloski’s testimony in Magistrates’ Court, even though the oral testimony attributed statements to Prasiloski that were not in the original written deposition the magistrate had signed?
In a decision delivered on 11 February, Chief Justice Macdonald reviewed the precedents and ruled that, though written evidence was best in such matters, oral evidence was indeed admissible. The other three judges concurred. Judge Howay’s decision was sustained. The British Columbia Court of Appeal had determined the law in the first case it had heard.
Perhaps there is no typical appeal court case. But the first case heard by the BC Court of Appeal effectively demonstrates one salient aspect of appeal court justice. In the Prasiloski appeal, the facts themselves were not at issue. Once the case reached the appeal stage, Prasiloski’s cow and the question of who (if anyone) stole it were no longer significant. Nor was it the appeal court’s task to decide if Prasiloski was a perjurer. Those were matters of fact to be determined by trial, and as such, they were the responsibility of the trial courts. What justified the attention of the appeal court was the possibility of an error of law. Had the appeal judges
OVER Since 1910 the British Columbia Court of Appeal has sat in this courtroom, but the room itself has moved. Built for the Vancouver Court House of 1909, the “Heritage Court Room” was reconstructed in the new law courts building in 1979. | British Columbia Court of Appeal (BCCA) and Skunkworks Creative Group Inc.