Human Rights Disclosure Litigation: Uncovering Invisible Medical Records
This article examines disclosure process and disclosure jurisprudence in human rights litigation. Based on a study of a decade of human rights disclosure rulings from across the country, this article finds that there have been increasing numbers of disclosure demands in human rights litigation and a...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Windsor
2010-02-01
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| Series: | The Windsor Yearbook of Access to Justice |
| Online Access: | https://wyaj.uwindsor.ca/index.php/wyaj/article/view/4493 |
| Summary: | This article examines disclosure process and disclosure jurisprudence in human rights litigation. Based on a study of a decade of human rights disclosure rulings from across the country, this article finds that there have been increasing numbers of disclosure demands in human rights litigation and a substantial number of cases in which the disclosure pertained to personal documents and medical records of human rights claimants. While disclosure applications were adjudicated according to a relevance-confidentiality framework used ostensibly to balance privacy and procedural fairness, in reality significant personal information was disclosed based on assumptions of relevancy and under the guise of neutral labels. A closer examination of the different types of materials sought for disclosure in three employment human rights cases reveals that the medical core of certain records are rendered invisible and thereby open for access when tribunals neglect to look behind document categories and titles. The article concludes that there is heightened vulnerability on the part of persons with disabilities as targets of disclosure demands for their confidential medical information. |
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| ISSN: | 2561-5017 |