HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Svetlana White
Applicant
-and-
National Committee on Accreditation
Respondent
Interim decision
Adjudicator: David Muir
Indexed as: White v. National Committee on Accreditation
1This is an Application filed on January 9, 2008 under section 53(5) of Part VI of the Ontario Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”).
2The applicant alleges that she has been subject to discrimination in goods and services on the basis of ethnic origin and place of origin. The applicant alleges that the criteria used by the respondent National Committee on Accreditation (NCA) to assess her educational credentials are discriminatory in that they are based solely on country of origin.
3The respondent states that the criteria used to assess the applicant’s educational credentials were not country of origin but rather the nature of the legal education received by an applicant and relied upon by them for accreditation by the respondent. In general terms the NCA attempts to assess the “common law” content of the education or work experience of the applicant in order to ensure that the person is able to deliver competent legal services to the Canadian population. The NCA also states that they do take into account the legal system of the jurisdiction in which the candidate obtained his or her legal education.
4The NCA states that the applicant was assessed on the basis of her legal education in Russia, a jurisdiction that has no common law component in its legal system. In accordance with the NCA’s classification scheme, the applicant was considered as coming from the “other” category, that is not from a common law system, a hybrid legal system or Quebec. For those candidates the NCA states that it evaluates the candidate’s actual transcript to compare the courses taken with the equivalent course that a Canadian law graduate would be required to take before being licensed to provide legal services to the public.
5This Interim Decision deals with three Requests for Order During Proceeding (Requests) filed by the applicant seeking production of materials from the respondent. These Requests are substantially similar to requests previously made by the applicant and rejected in 2009 HRTO 1537.
6The applicant’s Requests are set out below:
a. The applicant seeks the production of all applications (including file numbers) of foreign lawyers from common law, hybrid, Quebec and other categories in 2003 and 2004. The applicant states that this evidence is necessary to prove that country of origin and country of education have a high correlation and that the criteria used by the respondent are a proxy for place or country of origin in this case Russia.
b. The applicant seeks all NCA evaluation forms from files evaluated during 2003 and 2004 for all categories of persons seeking accreditation. The applicant states that these documents are necessary to show different treatment based on country of origin.
c. The applicant seeks the production of the official records of the NCA Meeting Minutes for 2003 and 2004 regarding evaluation of foreign credits from different countries, including the identity of the facilitator who prepared the background summary of each applicant for the meeting, attendees, applications discussed, experts’ opinions and decisions made. The applicant states that these materials are necessary to prove that experts have little or zero knowledge/or certification on legal systems of other countries, or that they were never involved in the evaluation because they were in fact performed by support staff.
d. The applicant seeks the production of any regulations or guidelines that restrict the power of the NCA to evaluate on an individual basis application with other than common law educations. This evidence is necessary states the applicant to establish that the NCA’s “exclusion practices” towards lawyers from the “other” category do not meet the Meioran test established by the Supreme Court of Canada.
7With respect to the Requests in paragraphs a and b I am not satisfied that, to the extent that such material has not already been provided, these additional materials are arguably relevant to the issues in dispute. The Requests are overbroad and even if granted are extremely unlikely to reveal anything helpful to the adjudication of this dispute.
8The applicant claims that she denied accreditation because she is from Russia. The respondent states that it did not consider the fact that the applicant was from Russia but rather made the assessment based on the fact that her legal education was in the Russian legal system. As I stated in the previous Interim Decision the issue for determination in this Application is whether or not the applicant was denied accreditation in whole or in part because she was from Russia. It is the criteria used to assess her academic credentials and how those were applied to her case that should be at the centre of the factual dispute between the parties not whether all Russians with a Russian legal education are denied accreditation.
9Ms. White states that the production of these materials will show that applications from “other countries” were ignored. Again this is not the issue; rather the material sought would have to be arguably relevant to in establishing that because Ms. White is from Russia her application was ignored.
10With respect to the request in paragraph c, this is the same request made on July 23 and dealt with in the previous Interim Decision. There is no basis to reconsider that decision.
11With respect to the request in paragraph (d) the respondent states that these materials have already been provided to the extent that they exist.
12The Requests are denied.
Dated at Toronto, this 15th day of January, 2010
“Signed By”
David Muir
Vice-chair