A Surrey Pretrial inmate who launched a human rights complaint claiming discrimination based on mental and physical disability has been unsuccessful in his attempt to add gender discrimination to the list.
Kevin Scott Miller lodged a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against Surrey Pretrial, Chiron Health Services and the Provincial Health Services Authority alleging his incarcerators failed to “reasonably accommodate” his physical disability by providing him with a second mattress, a drug-free pain management solution and timely and sufficient mental health services.
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He sought to amend his complaint to add the ground of sex to his list, after learning about a policy through which women are provided with certain mental health services not made available to men.
Tribunal member Emily Ohler rejected his amendment bid, arguing that adding this new ground of complaint would be “shifting the goalposts in a way that would be unfair to the respondents at this stage.
“Mr. Miller is at liberty to file a separate complaint with these allegations subject to the time limits set out in the Code,” Ohler wrote in her reasons for decision issued July 3.
“In the light of the whole of the procedural history on this file and the nature of the amendment sought by Mr. Miller, I am of the view that it would be procedurally unfair to allow the amendment which significantly broadens the scope of the complaint.”
Miller’s other claims have not yet been proven or disproven before the tribunal.
This is the third human rights complaint launched by inmates against Surrey Pretrial in recent months. Aside of Miller’s complaint, another inmate claimed the denial of her request for a kosher diet violated Section 8 of the Human Rights Code. Also, a transgender inmate claimed discrimination for being housed in a “male facility.”
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