The Government of New Brunswick wants the lawsuit filed by a doctor who says he faced a barrage of racist attacks after being accused of breaking COVID-19 rules to be thrown out of court.
The Office of the Attorney General filed a Court of Queen’s Bench motion on June 28, asking for the suit to be “struck out entirely” for failing to make a reasonable case against the province.
Dr. Jean Robert Ngola was accused of violating the province’s Emergency Measures Act amid a growing COVID-19 outbreak in May 2020 while working as a family doctor in Campbellton, N.B.
The Crown later withdrew the charge after concluding there was no chance of conviction.
Government says Ngola’s 61-page statement of claim is repetitive, unnecessarily complicated and “an abuse of the process of the court.”
Ngola’s suit lists the province, the RCMP and Facebook’s owner, Meta, as defendants.
He alleges that Premier Blaine Higgs should have known the doctor would face abuse after referring to an “irresponsible” health-care worker during a COVID-19 update in 2020.
The motion said the matter was being handled by the RCMP.