OTTAWA -- A constitutional challenge of a retroactive Conservative law that got the Mounties off the hook for illegally destroying gun registry records is in limbo. Federal information commissioner Suzanne Legault is pursuing the court challenge on behalf of Bill Clennett, whose 2012 request for gun registry records was ultimately thwarted when the RCMP destroyed the data -- in violation of the Access to Information Act. The former Harper government cleared the Mounties and quashed an investigation into their activities by the Ontario Provincial Police by passing a retroactive law just before Parliament was dissolved last summer. Legault's challenge of the constitutionality of the retroactive law -- which legal scholars say is unprecedented -- was to begin court hearings in December, but was suspended for three months at the request of the new Liberal government. Now the information commissioner's website says there's not even a timetable for a court resumption, due to pending settlement negotiations. Clennett tells The Canadian Press that no negotiations have begun and that he still believes the Liberal government will have to pass new legislation to reverse the Conservative changes.
