Home
Search:
1146 feeds
357 categories
0 articles (<24 hours)
28 registered users

Use the Mobile version
Mobile

Follow our Twitter feed

View our Linkpartners
Links

Username:
Password:

Register | Retrieve

Culture


RSS FeedsSecrecy often chokes off public information from tribunal hearings
(The Star Food)

 
 

17 february 2017 12:52:13

 
Secrecy often chokes off public information from tribunal hearings
(The Star Food)
 


When attending a public hearing at the Ontario Labour Relations Board, lots of personal information, including names and employment history, is said out in the open. All of this can be reported by the media. But trying to access the same documents that are relied upon in those hearings is an entirely different matter. Case in point: Toronto Star reporter Robert Cribb made a request in 2014 to review documents relating to a dispute between the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) and its Local 183 and whether the latter should have been placed under trusteeship due to alleged improprieties. (The board held that the trusteeship should remain in place.) Cribb and colleague Tony Van Alphen had been researching the local, including possible connections with organized crime. But their quest for documents that were filed at a public hearing turned into a legal and bureaucratic nightmare, and ultimately sparked the Star’s much broader legal challenge launched last week against secrecy in Ontario’s tribunals. Cribb and Van Alphen were mainly looking for affidavits and declarations. They were told they would have to file a Freedom of Information request — which can be a costly and lengthy process, with no guarantee that documents will even be disclosed. In contrast, documents filed as part of a court proceeding, including those containing personal information, are presumptively public and can easily be accessed the same day at the courthouse. Related:Star launches legal challenge to end secrecy in Ontario tribunalsEnd this needless secrecy: EditorialEND Send your stories to: tribunals@thestar.ca About a month after making the request, the reporters were permitted to access several banker’s boxes of documents at the OLRB offices, and to make copies of certain materials. “These were documents filed with the board for consideration in a labour relations matter that resulted in a hearing that was open to the public, ...


 
10 viewsCategory: Culture > Gastronomy
 
Judge apologizes to parents of girl left in `limbo´ for years after flawed Motherisk drug test
(The Star Food)
Ottawa to settle lawsuit with three Muslim Canadians jailed, tortured in Syria
(The Star Food)
 
 
blog comments powered by Disqus


Copyright © 2008 - 2024 Indigonet Services B.V.. Contact: Tim Hulsen. Read here our privacy notice.
Other websites of Indigonet Services B.V.: Nieuws Vacatures Science Tweets Nachrichten