Re: “Victoria guide-dog owner loses discrimination suit over taxi ride,” Oct. 7.
Silly me. All this time, I have believed that our justice system was based on proof.
At no time in the Graeme McCreath/Victoria Taxi case — I was present throughout both the human-rights tribunal and the Supreme Court hearings — was any “proof” of driver allergy presented. At the original rights hearing, the driver in question was absent (“unavailable”) and the Victoria Taxi manager neither produced nor was asked to produce medical documentation for his driver. The transcript doesn’t mention it, either.
Recently, the Supreme Court justices assumed, again without proof of “allergy,” that the tribunal had proceeded impartially, saying: “The exception policy struck a reasonable balance between the rights of two groups of disabled persons.”
So, an unproved condition of an unexamined witness has been elevated to a “disability.” This is an insult to the truly disabled and a black mark for justice.
John Stonehouse
Metchosin
