MEDIA RELEASE
The Canadian Romani Alliance, a Canada wide coalition which includes the Toronto-based Roma Community Centre, are delighted to share that, after nearly three years, the Class Action Lawsuit, on behalf of nearly 900 Hungarian Roma Refugee Claimants, has been resolved.
This victory of justice is based on the many years of determined work by the law firm of Flaherty McCarthy LLP, and the courage of the refugee claimants who shared their stories and spoke up against the injustice perpetuated by their lawyers here, in Canada. This success brings justice to the Hungarian Roma families and individuals, who between January 1, 2009 – December 31, 2013 fled ethnic persecution in Hungary and sought asylum in Canada only to be profoundly disappointed by their lawyers: Viktor Hohots, Joseph Farkas, and Erzsebet Jaszi. Due to professional misconduct by their respective lawyers, these refugee claimants were robbed of a fair opportunity to seek safety in Canada. Many were left feeling that due to their Roma ethnicity, they were disregarded and disrespected by their Canadian-Hungarian lawyers -- the same disregard and discrimination as they routinely faced in Hungary.
In the November 8, 2017 Toronto Star article, litigation lawyer Sean Brown, who represents the plaintiffs for Flaherty McCarthy LLP in the class-action lawsuit, said, “We have alleged that these lawyers accepted legal aid retainers but abdicated their professional responsibilities, engaged in professional misconduct and negligently represented their clients.”[i] The lawsuits claim the lawyers exhibited “a systemic pattern of conduct, which resulted in many of the defendant’s clients receiving inadequate and negligent service, such that they lost the opportunity to have their claims decided on their merits.” Due to such professional misconduct and negligence, almost all refugee claimants were thus deported back to Hungary, a country for which they feared persecution.
In the recent settlement, the Honourable Mr. Justice Perell, ordered the three insurance companies representing the three lawyers, to pay approximately $500,000 in damages to the members of the class action lawsuit, minus all legal fees. Depending on how many people come forward, each plaintiff can receive up to a maximum of $5000 each. The motion for court approval of the settlement is scheduled for September 11, 2020, to be heard by video conference. With this resolution, Brown states, “We are pleased that our clients will get some compensation after all this time. It is unfortunate these vulnerable people were let down by the very lawyers they relied upon for advice and skilled representation. The settlement of this matter will give our clients much-needed closure”.
“We are pleased that our clients will get some compensation after all this time. It is unfortunate these vulnerable people were let down by the very lawyers they relied upon for advice and skilled representation. The settlement of this matter will give our clients much-needed closure”.
The seeds of this justice were sowed by the Redress for Roma Refugees Coalition Working Group, initially formed in 2011, by leadership from the Romero House, Parkdale Legal Clinic, West Neighbourhood House, and the Roma Community Centre. Countless Hungarian refugee claimants were showing up at their doors with terrible stories about the inadequate legal representation they were receiving. There was a pattern to the stories. The lawyers, none of whom are Roma but most of whom spoke Hungarian or hired translators, were well known in the community and often solicited clients. They would collect fees but, after initial consultations, fail to provide even the most basic of legal representation. The result was a failed refugee claim at times because the lawyers had not even directly met with their clients before their hearing, making it next to impossible to succeed, and resulting in deportation .
Over the years, lawyers, academics, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and community support workers all donated their time, energy and networks and helped the Coalition grow in size and capacity. In 2015 and 2016 Hohots, Farkas and Jaszi were found guilty of professional negligence by the Law Society of Upper Canada. Although this ruling was important, it was not enough for those who were already deported and, in many cases, banned from returning to – including seeking asylum in -- Canada for 10 years. Flaherty McCarthy LLP agreed that it was important for there to be an element of accountability to the plaintiffs and agreed to take on the case to ensure at least a token of financial redress.
As we can see from domestic and international news, the exploitation of refugees is not new, and the success of this class-action lawsuit may well help protect many in the future who seek safety in Canada. According to Canadian and international law, all people have the right to seek safety in another country, but this right is too often ignored, and the image of the refugee becomes politically manipulated. Mary Jo Leddy, founder of the Romero House and member of the Order of Canada, said, “This is an important achievement not only for the Roma community but for all those refugees whose lives have been seriously threatened by lawyers who were supposed to defend them”.
Previous advocacy successes resulting from the Redress for Roma Refugees Coalition include: significant changes at Legal Aid Ontario for refugee lawyers, as well as general acknowledgement of human rights issues impacting European Roma, leading to higher and more stable acceptance rates at the Immigration and Refugee Board over the past five years. The Redress for Roma Refugees Coalition continues to advocate for changes at the Law Society of Upper Canada for better protection and shorter investigation time frames for cases involving all refugee claimants. Lastly, three years ago, the Immigration Minister’s department promised to explore a political remedy for all those who were unfairly deported due to negligent legal representation.
In 2015, York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School conducted an in-depth study about Hungarian Roma refugee claimants. It was reported that there were a number of troubling experiences endured by Hungarian Roma within Canada’s refugee determination system between 2008 and 2012, including the impact of “anti-refugee rhetoric, institutional bias, inconsistent decision making at the Immigration Refugee Board, and problems related to quality of legal counsel”.[ii] This rhetoric seeped into both Canadian and Hungarian media portrayal which, in turn, coloured many of the judgements, as noted in a 2017 piece published in Ethnic and Racial Studies.[iii]
Moving forward, according to Gina Csanyi-Robah, Executive Director of the Canadian Romani Alliance and former executive director of the Roma Community Centre, “As a community, we will aim to seek an official apology from our Canadian government for the overt institutionalized discrimination that was perpetrated toward Hungarian and Czech Roma all being characterized as ‘bogus refugees’ with intentions to commit crimes, while exploiting Canadian healthcare and welfare, by the former Federal Immigration Minister and current Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney.” In 2012, Csanyi-Robah wrote a report to the United Nation’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regarding this institutionalized racism that exploited negative, ‘Gypsy’ stereotypes and severely impacted the ability of European Roma refugees to seek refuge. The billboards erected in Hungary[iv], to discourage Roma from coming to Canada as refugees was the epitome of racism exemplified by Kenney’s Canadian immigration policy toward Roma[v].
If our present moment is teaching us anything it is that systemic racism is alive and present in Canadian institutions and this is unacceptable – particularly in our legal system. As lawyer Maureen Silcoff, a member of the Coalition, stated "This is a huge victory for the Roma community. Human rights must always guide the path, and when there's an injustice toward a community, it cannot persist." If we want a create a truly just society, based on human rights for all we must acknowledge where and when discrimination takes place, provide proper remedy, and ensure that it never takes place again. This legal victory is a small, and important step, in this process.
Gina Csanyi-Robah
Executive Director,
Canadian Romani Alliance
(416) 561-0770 | (604) 657-9049
[i] Nicholas Keung, “Roma refugees sue Toronto lawyers over failed asylum claims”: Toronto Star, November 8, 2017. (https://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2017/11/08/roma-refugees-sue-toronto-lawyers-over-failed-asylum-claims.html)
[ii] Sean Rehaag, Jennifer Danch, Julianna Beaudoin, “No Refuge: Hungarian Romani Refugee Claimants in Canada”, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University Journal, Vol 52, Issue 3 (2015), ( https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/ohlj/vol52/iss3/1/)
[iii] Viktor Varjú & Shayna Plaut (2017) Media mirrors? Framing Hungarian Romani migration to Canada in Hungarian and Canadian press, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 40:7, 1096-1113, DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2017.1266007
[iv] Nicholas Keung,“Roma refugees: Canadian billboards in Hungary warn of deportation”: Toronto Star, January 25, 2013. (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/01/25/roma_refugees_canadian_billboards_in_hungary_warn_of_deportation.html)
[v] Karl Nerenberg, “Canadian government to persecuted Roma people in Hungary: 'Stay home'”, Rabble.ca, February 13, 2013. (https://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2013/02/canadian-government-persecuted-roma-people-hungary-stay-home)