Everyone should have a fair shot at succeeding life, regardless of their background, gender or beliefs. Discriminating against people on any of these factors is wrong. If an employer shreds an applicant’s CV merely on account of her being a woman, he should be brought up on charges before a human rights tribunal. The same goes for a landlord who refuses to rent apartments to anyone who is black, for example.

These are just two examples illustrating the problems for which human rights commissions were set up in Canada. Discrimination is a fact of life, unfortunately, and despite a fairly enlightened world we live in, it still happens all the time, and victims of discrimination must have a venue and forum to seek remedy.

What human rights commissions shouldn’t be, though, is a placeholder for actual courts of law. Only too often, people have abused the human rights system in Canada, taking grievances before one of the commissions, instead of hiring a lawyer and seeking redress the proper way. As such, human rights commissions have become pseudo-courts (or kangaroo courts), where people file complaints to avoid having to pay lawyer and other legal fees.

Worse still, most of those cases don’t even involve human rights violations, but often disputes arising between two individuals or groups, which by all rights ought to be dealt with by the courts or through conflict resolution.

Quite often, though, cases brought before a human rights commission would be rejected by proper courts for being frivolous or for lacking a proper cause of action, such as complaints that involve bruised egos or hurt feelings. While one can, and should, sue if one becomes the target of malicious defamation, there is absolutely no right to sue over hurt feelings.

Calgary-based imam Syed Soharwardy felt deeply offended by the Western Standard’s publication of the “Danish cartoons” that made light of Islam and its symbols. He was so offended, in fact, he contacted the police and tried to bring criminal charges against the magazine, which was run then by Ezra Levant. Needless to say that he was fobbed off by the police for bringing such a frivolous, and non-existent, charge.

He could have sought remedy through the courts, but that would have entailed lawyer fees, which the imam didn’t want to pay, so he filed a complaint with the human rights commission, where his legal fees would be picked up by the taxpayers and where the standard rules of evidence and burden of proof do not apply.

He did eventually drop the complaint and has “played more nicely”. To his credit, he’s been actively seeking to improve relations between the Muslim community and the mainstream. But now, in a newspaper op-ed, he drags up the past again and reveals that he still doesn’t understand what human rights commissions are for.

As he puts it:

I had a dispute with the Western Standard and I used the legal system that the Canadian / Alberta government established for this purpose.

“Used” comes close to the truth, but “abused” would be the more appropriate word. Let’s get this straight: the commission was not set up “for this purpose”; proper courts of law were set up “for this purpose”. He’s also incorrect when he says he “used the legal system”, because by going before the human rights commission with his complaint he did in fact venture outside the legal system.

It is absolutely plain to see why any Muslims would have been outraged at the sight of the Danish cartoons. No one likes to see their heartfelt beliefs be ridiculed in this manner. But such offence doesn’t give rise to any type of legal action, at least not in the real world. We all get offended every day by different things, and what is insulting to one is just fine or not-that-big-of-a-deal to someone else. Since hurt feelings are by definition a highly subjective issue, there is no way of creating a criminal or even civil offence based on tears, of the crocodile kind or otherwise.

Thankfully, reason prevents lawmakers from ever putting such a bogus offence on the books. But at the same time, it is this barrier of reasonableness that leads many to bypass the legal system and file frivolous and bogus charges with what has now become a system of kangaroo courts. Their “judges”, all bureaucrats who owe their livelihoods to government appointment and who could barely make a decent living in the real world, are only too happy to entertain such harebrained complaints. Without them, they would have very little to do, and, above all, operate in obscurity without the fifteen minutes of fame they seem to crave so much.

Soharwardy’s continued efforts to unite, rather than divide, are laudable and should be encouraged, but reasonable people should not allow him to whitewash past events. He has yet to acknowledge that his complaint was a blatant abuse of the human rights commission. He must also recognize that there is no right of not being offended, and he must learn the difference between hurt feelings and actual discrimination. For example, the imam would be well within his rights if he had lost a job or apartment due to discrimination. But looking at cartoons, which he could have easily avoided by not buying that issue of the magazine, and feeling offended doesn’t give rise to an actionable complaint.

Every day comedians, caricaturists, journalists, columnists, writers and others make fun of different beliefs: Christians, conservatives, you name it – conservatives, in particular, are constantly faced with campaigns to stoke hatred and even violence against them. Many feelings get hurt in the process, and we have all been exposed to such ridicule at one time or another. But as reasonable and mature human beings, we deal with it and move on. What we don’t do is abuse whatever facility government may put at our disposal, because that would be a more serious wrong than the actual source of insult, including the “Danish cartoons”.