Divisional Court Upholds Gatekeeper Function by not Assisting Unrepresented Litigant with a Perceived Unmeritorious Claim. In this instance, the unrepresented litigant brought their appeal in the wrong court, and urged the appellate court to transfer the case to the proper appeal court (the Court of Appeal). In refusing to do so, the Divisional Court felt uncompelled to send an unmeritorious claim to the proper appellate court, but it was still open to the litigant to try to convince the Court of Appeal to accept his appeal. In describing the gate keeping function, the Divisional Court said the following:
“Unrepresented litigants are not entitled to pursue proceedings that are without merit, any more than represented litigants may pursue such proceedings, and the court must act as a gatekeeper to filter unmeritorious cases out of the system so that they do not consume scarce judicial resources that could be devoted to other cases.”
Mohammed v. Sajjad-Hazai, 2022 ONSC 285 (CanLII)
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onscdc/doc/2022/2022onsc285/2022onsc285.html