JUDICIAL REVIEW OF COMMISSION DECISIONS

The Commission enjoys broad discretionary powers with respect to the reception and processing of complaints under the CHRA. The cases highlighted in this section illustrate the type of issues that may result in Commission decisions being challenged before the Federal Court.

Complaint Form
    

Whether the Commission improperly declined to exercise its jurisdiction was the subject of an application for judicial review of a Commission requirement that a complainant sign a complaint form using the name appearing on her birth certificate.¹⁹¹ The case involved a complainant who had been living under the name of Micheline Montreuil for a considerable length of time, even though her birth certificate identified her as Joseph Yves Pierre Papineau Montreuil. In point of fact, all her credit cards, tax returns, bank accounts and other financial documents carried her assumed name of Micheline Montreuil. The Commission took the view that it was beyond its jurisdiction to accept a complaint signed with the name AMicheline Montreuil@, citing section 5 of the Quebec Civil Code¹⁹² that required judicial procedures to be engaged in a person's name as it appeared on his or her birth certificate. In rejecting this position, the Federal Court pointed out that, while the CHRA gives the Commission the authority to determine what constitutes an acceptable form for a complaint, it cannot arbitrarily reject a complaint for reason only that it was not signed using the name of a person as it appeared on his or her birth certificate. The Court reasoned that the filing of a complaint did not in and of itself constitute a judicial procedure and hence was not caught by the formal rules set out in section 5 of the Civil Code. Given the mandate of the Commission, the Court felt it must show greater flexibility and less rigid formalism in determining the form in which a complaint should be filed. Its interpretation of section 5 of the Civil Code was also found to have been legally incorrect. In any event, the Court ordered that the complaint carry the name of AJoseph Ives Pierre Papineau Montreuil connu sous le nom de Micheline Montreuil@¹⁹³ and that the complainant be allowed to sign the complaint with the name she normally used.

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End Notes