Of 19 appeals since 1996, the court has overturned the tribunal 11 times owing to errors of law. Both the Federal Court and the auditor general, moreover, have pointed to the interdependence between the commission and the tribunal as a potential problem. And within the CHRC, there is a multitude of potential conflicts of interest. Consider, for example, that commission staff can both mediate the rights disputes before it and assist a complainant to take his case before the courts. Indeed, the commission may solicit a complaint about discrimination, help draft the complaint, investigate it and then appear before the human rights tribunal to argue it.
Impartiality is largely a myth when one party serves as both prosecutor and patrolman.
They are co-prosecutors or, to speak bluntly, henchmen who, by their own interference and unfair rulings, are helping to create a lynch mob atmosphere at the hearings. All students of the current censorship struggle have to do is to study the Zundelsite transcripts to see gross corruption in action. The CHRC was set up in 1977 to offer an alternative to the lengthy and often costly process of adjudicating discrimination cases through the Federal Court system. I was right there in the courtroom the very first day of the hearing and could have aborted that freakish show right then and there. That would have spoiled the lynching.