By Kellah Lavoie

Human Right Tribunal elimination positive: Lawyer

Dec 1, 2010 | 10:50 AM

New changes are on the way for the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code and Human Rights Tribunals.

The provincial government announced yesterday that they will try and resolve more complaints though the use of alternate dispute resolution. In turn they will eliminate the Human Rights Tribunal and move its powers to the Court of Queen’s Bench.

It is something Prince Albert lawyer, Philip Fourie, said is a good thing.

“Unfortunately, whether it is true or not, there is a perception that there is bias from the Human Rights Tribunals,” he said.

“Especially it seems like from religious organizations and other parties in the past, that has found that the Human Rights Tribunal for some reason–and we don’t know what those reasons are–have exercised their powers with a certain amount of bias.”

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It is the same reason the provincial government gave for removing the tribunal.

“Unfortunately, it is not always seen as independent from the commission. We believe this change will both strengthen confidence in the process and help reduce the lengthy timelines within the current process,” said Don Morgan, provincial justice minister, in a press release.

“To remove that perception it seems (is) the only way to take it to an institution, who is generally perceived to not be biased, by most anyways, and that would probably be the first choice, to take it to the Court of Queen’s Bench,” Fourie said.

Fourie said he does not think it will slow down proceedings at the Court of Queen’s Bench either.

He said if there were 14 jury trials coming up in the next few months, only about half of them would go forward. The other half would be worked out among the lawyers before the trial saw the inside of a courtroom.

A week can fall open at a time, he said.

“When I look at the Court of Queen’s Bench, I don’t think they are overly burdened at this time,” Fourie said explaining that does not necessarily ring true for judges.

“In general I think 98 per cent of human rights cases are not something overly complicated and are something that can be dealt with efficiently and in a timely manner.”

klavoie@panow.com