Jayaraj v. Cannon, 2013 HRTO 1207

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

David Jayaraj

Applicant

-and-

Joshua Cannon

Respondent

DECISION

Adjudicator: Brian Cook

Date: July 10, 2013

Citation: 2013 HRTO 1207

Indexed as: Jayaraj v. Cannon

APPEARANCES

David Jayaraj, Applicant

No one appearing

Joshua Cannon, Respondent

Michele Wright, Counsel

1On July 24, 2012, the applicant filed an Application under section 34 of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”). The applicant alleged that he experienced discrimination because of race, colour and place of origin, during an appearance at court on July 29, 2012. The officials alleged to have been involved included a Justice of the Peace, a Crown counsel and a court security officer.

2The Application as it related to the alleged discrimination by the Justice of the Peace and the Crown counsel was dismissed in Interim Decision 2012 HRTO 1894 because the Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to deal with those allegations because of the legal doctrines of judicial and prosecutorial immunity. Those doctrines do not apply to a court security officer and so the Application as it relates to the alleged discrimination by the court security officer was not dismissed at that time. However, in the Interim Decision I noted that, based on the information provided by the applicant, it was not clear that the applicant would be able to establish that the court security officer in fact discriminated against the applicant.

3The Interim Decision directed a summary hearing to determine if the Application as against the court security officer should be dismissed under Rule 19A of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure, which permits the Tribunal to dismiss an Application if there is no reasonable prospect that the Application will succeed.

4The summary hearing was scheduled for July 4, 2013 at 1:30 p.m. and was conducted by telephone conference call hearing.

5At the telephone conference call hearing, counsel for the respondent appeared on the call. However, the applicant did not appear and still had not appeared after half an hour.

6The Notice of the summary hearing was delivered to the applicant at the address that he provided to the Tribunal. The applicant has not provided any updated contact information. The Notice was not returned as non-deliverable, and there is no indication that it was not received by the applicant. Counsel for the respondent advised that the applicant recently provided the same address in a Statement of Claim.

7I am satisfied that the applicant received Notice of the summary hearing and there is no apparent explanation for his failure to call in to the telephone conference call hearing. In these circumstances, I find that the applicant has abandoned the Application. In the alternative, I conclude that the applicant's failure to call into the telephone conference call hearing means that it would be abuse of the Tribunal’s process for the Application to continue, and the Application is also dismissed on that basis.

DECISION

8The Application is dismissed.