The StarPhoenix – March 23, 2011
Letter: Basic justice disregarded

Re: Backward step in human rights (SP, March 21).

I am discouraged by the indifference to basic justice shown by Alex Neve and Ailsa Watkinson in their recent comments on Bill 160. I am also disappointed by their affront to the bastion of basic justice – the judiciary. In an article of almost 800 words, not one was written in consideration of the respondents in human rights actions.

It is the attitude of people like Neve and Watkinson that has profaned Tommy Douglas’s 1947 Bill of Rights and compromised Saskatchewan’s human rights model. As a result, while the legal and business communities embrace human rights, they are dubious of the enforcement mechanism. This is what makes Bill 160 vital.

The writers reject having unresolved cases heard by the Court of Queen’s Bench instead of a human rights tribunal, because judges lack the expertise of tribunal members. These same judges are daily asked to untangle complex criminal and civil cases or to interpret the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but apparently aren’t clever enough to understand our Human Rights Code. Perhaps the writers meant that judges might not be reliable when it comes to disregarding the rights of respondents.

Accessibility is another problem: Judges wear robes and sit in woodpanelled courtrooms -intimidating to complainants. This is a preposterous remark. Do tribunal members wear jeans and hear cases in warehouses?

Finally, the writers commend tribunals because, “Rules of evidence are not as stringent.” It is this comment that actually strikes at the root of the problem.

Wilf Popoff
Saskatoon