Being served with an Emergency Protection Order in Calgary means that an order has been made against you without your knowledge, usually removing you from your home and cutting off contact with your spouse or partner and often with your children, and that a justice of the Court of King’s Bench will review that order no later than nine working days after it was granted. The review hearing is the first and most important opportunity to respond. The order was granted on the claimant’s evidence alone; at the review, the justice must consider that evidence and may consider yours, and may revoke the order, confirm it, direct an oral hearing, or replace it with a King’s Bench Protection Order that can last up to a year.
Until the review, the order must be obeyed to the letter, including any term prohibiting indirect contact through friends or family, because breaching a protection order is an offence carrying fines and imprisonment and permits arrest without a warrant. The right response to an EPO is preparation for the review: a sworn response that addresses each allegation specifically, evidence of the actual history between the parties, the parenting arrangements that need to be preserved for the children, and a position on terms that protect the respondent’s ability to return to the home or to see the children where that is appropriate. The review proceeds whether or not the respondent attends, and a respondent who does not attend risks having the order confirmed on the claimant’s account alone.
Keystone Legal represents respondents at EPO review hearings in the Court of King’s Bench at the Calgary Courts Centre. The firm obtains the material that was before the justice of the peace, prepares the respondent’s affidavit within the short timeline allowed by the nine-day review, appears at the review, and, where the order is confirmed or replaced, negotiates or argues the terms so that they are no broader than the situation requires. Where the EPO has displaced parenting arrangements, the firm brings the parenting issue before the Court at the same time rather than leaving it to drift, and where the order is revoked, the firm advises on steps to prevent the situation from recurring.
Respondents in Calgary engage the firm quickly and confidentially, which the nine-working-day timeline requires. Keystone Legal accepts EPO review matters proceeding through the Calgary Courts Centre, works virtually with in-person meetings by arrangement, and serves clients in English and French. If you have been served with an EPO, call (587) 328-3328 the day you receive it.
