HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Nagy Riad
Applicant
-and-
Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario, as represented by the Minister of the Attorney General
Respondent
RECONSIDERATION DECISION
Adjudicator: Geneviève Debané
Indexed as: Riad v. Ontario (Attorney General)
WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS
Nagy Riad, Applicant
Self-represented
1On January 13, 2014, the Tribunal issued its Decision in this Application, 2014 HRTO 48, dismissing the Application. The applicant has asked the Tribunal to reconsider its Decision.
THE REQUEST FOR RECONSIDERATION
2The Request for Reconsideration provides a number of reasons in support of the Request to reconsider, including that "all Ontario courts have in our legal system have no authority, jurisdiction or mandate to rule on any discrimination cases."
3The Tribunal did not seek submissions from the respondent.
DECISION
4Under section 45.7 of the Code, the Tribunal may, at the request of a party or on its own initiative, reconsider its decisions in accordance with Tribunal's Rules.
45.7(1) Any party to a proceeding before the Tribunal may request that the Tribunal reconsider its decision in accordance with the Tribunal rules.
(2) Upon request under subsection (1) or on its own motion, the Tribunal may reconsider its decision in accordance with its rules.
5The Tribunal has issued Rules governing such requests as well as a Practice Direction to provide guidance to the community on the Tribunal's exercise of its reconsideration powers (Practice Direction on Reconsideration, January 2008 amended June 2008). Most relevant to this Decision is Rule 26 which states:
26.1 Any party may request reconsideration of a final decision of the Tribunal within (thirty) 30 days of the date of the decision
26.5. A Request for Reconsideration will not be granted unless the Tribunal is satisfied that
(a) there are new facts or evidence that could potentially be determinative of the case and that could not reasonably have been obtained earlier; or
(b) the party seeking reconsideration was entitled to but, through no fault of its own, did not receive notice of the proceeding or a hearing; or
(c) the decision or order which is the subject of the reconsideration request is in conflict with established jurisprudence or Tribunal procedure and the proposed reconsideration involves a matter of general or public importance; or
(d) other factors exist that, in the opinion of the Tribunal, outweigh the public interest in the finality of Tribunal decisions.
6The Tribunal's Practice Direction on Reconsideration begins with the following statements:
Decisions of the Tribunal are generally considered final and are not subject to appeal. However, parties may request that the Tribunal reconsider a final decision it has made. Reconsideration is a discretionary remedy; there is no right to have a decision reconsidered by the Tribunal. Generally, the Tribunal will only reconsider a decision where it finds that there are compelling and extraordinary circumstances for doing so and where these circumstances outweigh the public interest in finality of orders and decisions.
Reconsideration is not an appeal or an opportunity for a party to repair deficiencies in the presentation of its case.
7As is evident from the above, reconsideration is a discretionary remedy. That is, while the Tribunal has the jurisdiction to reopen and reconsider its own decisions, it is not obliged to do so. It may decide when reconsideration is advisable, both through the promulgation of rules setting out conditions for the exercise of its discretion, and through the application of its discretion on a case-by-case basis.
Decision
8I find that the applicant has not met the burden of establishing any of the threshold criteria justifying reconsideration.
9It is important to note that the issues raised in this Request were the subject of submissions before the Tribunal, and dealt with in its Decision. The Tribunal has stated that reconsideration is not an opportunity to re-argue a case. Once the parties have had the opportunity to present their evidence and arguments to the Tribunal, and the Tribunal has made a decision disposing of the issues, parties are entitled to treat the matter as closed, subject to limited exceptions. I find that the submissions in this Request amount to additional argument on issues already considered by the Tribunal.
10In sum, I find that the applicant has not established the existence of any of the criteria in Rule 26 that would lead to reconsideration of the Tribunal's Decision. The Request is denied.
Other Issues
11I have some concerns about a number of inaccurate statements that the applicant is making with respect to what occurred during the course of the hearing. I will address some of these statements.
12First, I made no ruling with respect to the issue of the timeliness of any of the allegations in the Application because the applicant advised that the sole issue before the Tribunal was with respect to events that occurred on February 12, 2012. Therefore, the applicant's assertion that I directed that the Tribunal would not hear or discuss any other allegations is patently false.
13Secondly, I never advised that Ms. Cohen or any of the respondents should reimburse the applicant $500.00 dollars for the cost of the second medical report or recommended to the applicant that he initiate an action at Small Claims Court for the recovery of same. Further, Ms. Cohen never made any verbal assurances that the Ministry would reimburse the applicant for this cost. These statements made by the applicant with respect to this issue are pure fabrications.
Order
14The applicant's Request to reconsider the Decision is dismissed.
Dated at Toronto, this 4th day of April, 2014.
"Signed By"
Geneviève Debané
Vice-chair