Monday, February 7, 2011

Dispensing injustice

Good editorial today in the Post highlighting yet another "human rights" travesty:

... Following a four-day hearing in 2009, a tribunal adjudicator sided with [the complainant] and ordered Ms. Telfer to pay her former employee $36,000, a sum Ms. Telfer says she does not have.  ... When she failed to pay, the plaintiff's government paid lawyers placed a lien on the home of Ms. Telfer.
... At the hearing, [the compainant] was represented by governmentpaid lawyers, while Ms. Telfer represented herself because she could not afford counsel (and no government aid was offered to her). During the proceedings, a key witness for Ms. Telfer was prevented from giving evidence, while no such exclusions were made from [the complainant's] witness list.
... Sadly, these are all-too-common tactics employed by federal and provincial rights commissions and tribunals ...
The good news is:
Last week, a three-judge Ontario Superior Court panel struck down the adjudicator's decision in Ms. Telfer's case, saying it was "fatally flawed" and explaining that it was "simply not possible to logically follow the pathway taken by the adjudicator" to arrive at his conclusions.
Which was promptly followed by some more bad news:
The court ordered another hearing before a different adjudicator...
Along with some slightly better news:
... and told [the complainant] to pay for Ms. Telfer's lawyer.
 But:
Naturally, the Ontario human rights tribunal has already said it will pay on [the complainant's] behalf ...
Arrrggghhh!

In conclusion:
["Human Rights" Commissions] have evolved into modern-day Star Chambers. Commissioners and investigators all too often act as though they have -- or should have -- the same authority as judges. Yet given their biases and the lack of safeguards for defendants' rights, they seldom dispense true justice. It is long past time that politicians found the courage to rein them in. [Amen!]
Dear Mr. Prime Minister and provincial Premiers:
Please get together on this, use some common sense and try to locate your gonads!

2 comments:

badbeta said...

I disagree with you about that so called good editorial. Do you not think it is pertinent to the story to name the adjudicator? It happens to be a sharia fan-boy by the name of Faisal Bhabha. They were totally gutless by leaving out that PUBLIC information.

JR said...

I agree that it would have been better had the Post named the adjudicator. I don't know why they didn't. I hope it wasn't gutlessness.

But thanks for the info.