Sunil Gurmukh

The applicant sought judicial review of an interim decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a stand-alone Charter challenge regarding a Ministry of Transportation policy.

Before the judicial review was heard, the applicant succeeded on his Human Rights Code claim, obtained his driver's licence, and the Ministry revised the impugned policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review on the basis of mootness, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case as there was no longer an adversarial context and the issue was not evasive of review.

The applicants sought to challenge the Ontario Human Rights Commission Policy and Guidelines on Racism and Racial Discrimination before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

The Tribunal found it lacked jurisdiction to hear a free-standing challenge to the policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review, confirming that the Tribunal, as a creature of statute, only has the jurisdiction granted by the legislature and that such a challenge must be pursued by way of a court application.

The applicant, a First Nations constable, sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal decision dismissing his complaint that his suspension and termination by the OPP Commissioner were discriminatory and acts of reprisal.

The applicant had been terminated after making public comments criticizing the OPP.

The Divisional Court upheld the Tribunal's findings that the exclusion of First Nations constables from the procedural protections of the Police Services Act was not discriminatory, but rather respected First Nations self-government.

The Court also upheld the finding that the termination was not a reprisal under the Human Rights Code, as the applicant's public comments were not an assertion of human rights.

A related application by the First Nation Council alleging a denial of natural justice was also dismissed.