Truewest, Beauharnais is a one-off that the US Supremes have consistently refused to follow as a precedent. It’s the Korematsu v US of First Amendment cases.

- you don’t have to prove damages for libel. And even nominal libel damages exceed the typical award in a human rights case.

tw, two ignoratio elenchi right off the top. Clever as it is to answer questions which have not been asked it is seldom persuasive.

Where Commissions operate the complainant - as Lucy has so effectively demonstrated - does not even have to show up. And, perhaps I was a little subtle for you on the libel thing: my point was that you are assuming the conclusion.

And you have done it again. The word “libel” is, in fact, a legal conclusion which does give rise to damages. But the libel must first be proven. What you have done is assume that the libel has been proven and then moved on to the damages.

Now, as to screening, in BC the only proper question before the Tribunal at the screening stage, according to the Rules, is whether, if the facts alleged by the complainant are assumed to be true, the Tribunal would have jurisdiction. I would be delighted if, at the screening stage, the Tribunal tossed complaints which, as you assert, “do not contain facts, which if true, would amount to a breach of the code”. Were that the case the Macleans matter would never have made it to a hearing.

Rule 11 - Screening of Complaints

Tribunal will screen

1. When a complaint is filed, the tribunal will screen the complaint to ensure that:

a. the Complaint Form and, if applicable, the Representative Complaint Form, is complete; and
b. the complaint appears to be within the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

et seq

the SCC gets to pick and choose which cases in it hears through leave applications.
And the BCHRT does the same - through exercise of Sec 27, which you have defended them not using.

Bad law that is constitutional is still the law. Courts have to enforce until the legislature changes it.
And I repeat my question - when did I suggest not enforcing the law? What I would like to see (next to getting rid of the operation altogether) is a Tribunal that understood and acted on their authority to dismiss complaints, as expressly established by the legislation that created the Tribunal.

- you don’t have to prove damages for libel. And even nominal libel damages exceed the typical award in a human rights case.

- The SCC only accepts cases that raise important points of law and are of national significance. The Tribunal, on the other hand, screens cases in which the complaint does not contain facts, which if true, would amount to a breach of the code. The comparison is, as I said, laughable. As for your idiotic, “thus….” I presume you’d like the tribunal to toss cases without hearing argument because….well, just because. Hey, why don’t we apply that logic to the whole process. Really, who needs to hear from the respondents?

- complainants in human rights cases pay their own lawyers.

In BC. Federally and in Ontario and Alberta the Commissions have conduct.

- libel is actionable per se, which means that defamatory publications are presumed to cause damage.

And a bachelor is an unmarried man. Confirming the antecedent sounds clever in Court right up until the premise is unpacked.

- the SCC gets to pick and choose which cases in it hears through leave applications. The BCHRT doesn’t have that luxury. The comparison is laughable.

Thus the entire idea of “screening” by the BCHRT is a joke.

- Bad law that is constitutional is still the law. Courts have to enforce until the legislature changes it.

Yup…

I make that 1.5 for 4

But minus 2 for miscounting - the old joke about lawyers being smart people who can’t count seems apt.

Congratulations - you went 0 for 5. Got any more bright ideas you’d like to share?

As for your suggestion that courts should simply refuse to enforce laws they disagree with…
Where did I make that suggestion? I said that the Tribunal should dismiss outlandish garbage on their own hook - as does, for example, the SCoC.

I can only say that if you think a five day human rights hearing a limit on freedom of speech, try sitting through a 50-day libel trial.
In which the other side has to show damages, and actually pay for their own lawyer? Yeah - that’s pretty comparable.

As would the whole the whole hearing. Of course, it took longer. quelle surprise

Your point that the HRT dismissed this on the narrowest of grounds may stand. I still think it’s wrong.

As for whether the HRT is the right place to hear complaints about what is, essentially, group libel, I suppose that’s an interesting question. You want to try these things in “real courts”, here are a couple of suggestions:
1) Get the feds to add something like the Illinois “group libel” statute to the criminal code.
2) Get the provinces to amend their libel acts to recognize group defamation. Then, instead of trundling off the HRT, we can file class action defation suits against bigots like Boission.
Oh the fun we’ll have.