Mentally Disabled Do Not Have Fair Access to Justice
At the time of the imminent opening of HSJCC’s Community Justice Conference 2021, I appreciate CMHA branches and John Howard Society branches as two of the main organizations that assist people with mental health issues in the criminal justices system. Yet, many mentally disabled with barriers to access justice are not assisted because the system they access is not the Criminal one.
HRTO and WSIB are two judicial components that deal with the mentally disabled regularly. But their adjudication practice is not mental-disability-informed and/or trauma-informed. Beyond the tribunals, the chances are even slimmer because the courts gave more weight to tribunals' judgment versus an individual's stand.
Ontario has an annual average of 250,000 WSIB claims. If 5% of the claims became long-term, that's 12,500 of them each year. Those in the injured worker groups that I am close to, after being ground in the claim system for some time, all need psychiatric medications despite the initial injuries being physical.
As for the HRTO, an authority on disabilities, let’s see a case in 2020. HRTO had no question the witness' severe mental disability:
Yet memory-clarity was used to measure credibility, and the witness was deemed not credible due to her memory impairment:
Any comments?
