The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal has denied a former City of Vancouver employee’s request to have her identity anonymized in her ongoing case against the city, ruling that her privacy concerns did not outweigh the public interest in maintaining open tribunal processes.
The Tribunal rejected G.N.’s application to limit the publication of her personal information. G.N., who filed a complaint against the City of Vancouver alleging it failed to accommodate her mental disability, argued that public disclosure of her name alongside details of her medical condition could harm her ability to find future employment and damage her professional reputation.
Her application to the Tribunal sought to have her name removed from any written decisions and requested redaction of identifying details from her case file before it becomes public. She contended that potential employers, upon learning of her mental health history, might unfairly view her as unfit to work, further impeding her job search.
Importance of public access
However, the Tribunal sided with the City of Vancouver, which opposed G.N.’s request, citing the importance of public access to tribunal proceedings. The city’s legal counsel argued that G.N.’s privacy interests did not outweigh the strong public interest in maintaining transparency. “Complaints at the Tribunal are presumptively public,” the decision notes, citing precedents that underline the role of transparency in promoting public confidence and educating the public about human rights processes.
The ruling underscores the Tribunal’s discretion to limit the publication of personal information only when it is deemed necessary. While G.N. raised concerns about the stigma attached to mental illness, the Tribunal found her concerns to be speculative. “It is not enough to assert that a person’s reputation may be tarnished,” the Tribunal wrote, referencing previous cases. The Tribunal noted that she did not provide specific evidence to demonstrate how the stigma of her mental disability might impact her job search or reputation.
Legal process involves some loss of privacy
The Tribunal acknowledged the stress G.N. might experience as a result of the decision, but emphasized that participation in legal processes inevitably involves some loss of privacy. “Parties before the Tribunal, like those before the courts, face an inevitable loss of privacy with respect to the matters in issue between them. This is the price that parties must pay in order to ensure that the public has reasonable access to legal proceedings,” the Tribunal wrote, citing Sinclair v. Blackmore and others.
It also highlighted that the details of G.N.’s complaint have been in the public domain since a preliminary decision in October 2023, making it difficult to argue for anonymization at this late stage. The ruling noted, “There is little or nothing the Tribunal can do to retrieve and change the information already in the public domain.” As a result, the Tribunal concluded that limiting the publication of future decisions in this case would provide G.N. with little additional protection.
General fears, not specific risks
While the Tribunal has, in the past, granted anonymization in cases involving sensitive medical information, particularly where mental illness may expose individuals to stigma, it found G.N.’s case lacked the necessary evidence to justify such protection. Unlike other cases where individuals provided detailed accounts of how exposure would impact their careers, her concerns were presented as general fears rather than specific risks, the Tribunal ruled.
In its submission, the City of Vancouver also argued that G.N.’s fears about employment barriers were speculative. The City denied her claim that it had refused to provide her with a positive reference, stating that her privacy concerns did not justify limiting public access to the tribunal’s proceedings. The Tribunal agreed, noting that the issue of a reference was “not relevant to the assessment of the issue currently before me.”
Although the Tribunal recognized the emotional toll that legal proceedings may take, it maintained that the principles of transparency must be upheld. “While the stress of having details of one’s disability in a published final decision… may add to (her) challenges, I do not find this factor increases the weight of her privacy interests where the information is already in the public sphere,” the Tribunal wrote.
The decision concluded by encouraging G.N. to seek support to help manage the stress of the proceedings, but ultimately denied her request to limit the publication of her personal information.
For more information, see Ng v. City of Vancouver (No.2), 2024 BCHRT 228 (CanLII).
