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Human Rights complaints will be processed faster, but still as biased as ever BY LifeSiteNews.com by Hilary WhiteTORONTO, February 22, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Ontario Attorney-General, Michael Bryant, announced Monday that the government will eliminate preliminary procedures for human rights complaints and quickly move cases straight to adjudication in a tribunal.Under the old system, a three-step procedure was followed in which the Human Rights Commission examined each case brought forward and decided if it should be pursued. If the complaint was seen to have merit, it moved to a mediated process in which the parties were encouraged to settle differences privately. It was only after those preliminary steps were taken that a challenge would go before a tribunal.ÂBryant said the process causes long delays, sometimes years long, before a complaint can be settled. The Globe and Mail reported Tuesday that the reform is intended to follow the recommendations of a 1992 study of the Human Rights Commission. Bryant says he hopes to reduce the time from its current four or five years to one.The Ontario government wants to reform the procedure, but making the process quicker is, in the view of many critics, not the most pressing change that needs to be made to the Human Rights complaints process. According to legal experts, the system is often heavily biased and leans unfairly towards the complainant and against the defendants.Gwen Landoldt of Real Women of Canada told LifeSiteNews.com that Human Rights Commissioners are unaccountable government appointees who are chosen not for their expertise in the law, but because they represent special interests. In addition, Landoldt pointed out, although the defendant must pay all his own costs, which can be very substantial, from the first moment of making a complaint the costs to the complainant are covered by the government. This situation, combined with the lack of objectivity of members of the Commission, and the absence of the rules of evidence that traditionally protected defendants creates an imbalance that has yet to be addressed by the government. Landoldt said, “There needs to be reform, certainly, but real reform that will make the system less biased and more in line with the requirements of the rule of law and due process.”“Eliminating the preliminary procedures just means you get cooked that much faster if you are the person against whom the complaint is launched, and without a reconciliation period, there is less chance of avoiding a costly tribunal in which hearsay an [can] be used as evidence against you.”Few Canadians understand that the Human Rights Tribunals are not bound by the usual regulations of legal courts. “People often represent themselves,” Landoldt said, “and they are facing formidable legal opposition, all paid for by the government. Then, when the Tribunal finds against them, they have no recourse because they can’t afford an appeal in the courts.”“Certainly delays are a problem, but just making an inherently unjust system work faster, is not really an improvement,” Landoldt said.Read Globe and Mail coverage:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060221.wxontrights21/BNStory/National/homeRead related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:  B.C. to Disband its Human Rights Commissionhttp://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/may/02053104.html  http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/ontario-government-proposes-the-wrong-reforms-for-human-rights-commission/

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