Thursday, February 25, 2010

Flagrant Misrepresentation on the Ontario 'Roo Site

Truth is no defence, fair comment has been deemed unfair, there's no presumption of innocence, and when it comes to judicial procedure, well, let's just say they've thrown the rule book out the window and are winging it. And yet this is how the Ontario "Human Rights" Tribunal, our very own 'roos, describes its work on its "new" website:
The Human Rights Code represents fundamental principles upon which our society is based. The Tribunal plays an important role in ensuring that those rights have real meaning. To do this, we have developed processes designed to be accessible and understandable.

The community must have confidence that Tribunal staff and members will treat each party with respect and address each Application in a fair and timely manner. Applicants, respondents and intervenors have the opportunity to be heard in a process that is accessible, fair, and based on the law and jurisprudence.
What a bunch of tommyrot! The process is not fair--since it is set up to favour the complainant, whose legal bills it picks up--not timely--it can drag on for years which, as Erza Levant has pointed out, is part and parcel of how it punishes the defendent--not accessible, or at least, accessible only to some (i.e. minorities/members of designated victim groups; if you want to complain about, say, an imam's hateful statements you can forget about it), and not based on the kind of law and jurisprudence on which Western law is predicated (although it does bear more than a passing resemblance to Soviet and Islamic law).

If we can't get rid of this cockamamie kangaroo court outright, can we at least get it to be honest about what it does?

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