Nicole Doucet Ryan said she turned to police to protect herself and her daughter, but was turned away. (CBC)

Nova Scotia's Liberal Opposition party is calling on the province to set up an inquiry to review how police handled the case of an abused woman who tried to hire a hit man to kill her husband.

Nicole Ryan Doucet, a high school teacher in southwestern Nova Scotia, was arrested in 2008 and charged with counselling an undercover police officer to kill Michael Ryan.

Doucet, as she is now known, alleges her husband pointed a gun at her a number of times, threw pieces of furniture at her, and had threatened to burn the house down with her and her daughter inside if she tried to leave.

In an unusual move last week, the Supreme Court of Canada ordered a stay of proceedings in her case while overturning her acquittal.

In its verdict Canada's top court also criticized the RCMP in Nova Scotia for its handling of the case. It said it was “disquieting” that “it seems the authorities were much quicker to intervene to protect Mr. Ryan than they had been to respond to her request for help in dealing with his reign of terror over her.”

Two Liberal MLAs in Nova Scotia say that's enough to launch an investigation into the RCMP.

"We'd like to see some sort of public review, so that all the facts can be presented to Nova Scotians, so that we can make sure that we have every confidence in our RCMP," said justice critic Michel Samson.

"When you have the Supreme Court of Canada coming out in a decision questioning the role of the RCMP in Nova Scotia in this matter, we need to do everything possible to re-establish confidence in our police forces."

He said he's worried the verdict will discourage some women from reporting cases of domestic abuse.

Internal matter

Justice Minister Ross Landry said he won't be ordering an outside review, because the RCMP has already launched an internal investigation.

"There are no allegations here of wrongdoing," said Landry. "What we're talking about is, were proper procedures followed in the number of investigations that they conducted? That's an internal process, and it may even be a performance issue [about] an employee. And who best to do that than the employer to look at the checks and balances? If at any point that we feel that there's wrongdoing done, then we will address that issue at that time."

He said the RCMP has promised a copy of their investigative findings.

Joel Pink, Doucet's lawyer, said he was "surprised" to hear the Liberals are asking for an inquiry.

He added his client just wants to put the ordeal behind her.

Meanwhile Doucet's former husband released a YouTube video this week defending himself. He said the court's decision was based on nothing more than his ex-wife's fabrications to avoid jail time for trying to have him killed.

with files from The Canadian Press