Police board member pleas for fair hearing
Suspended man calls on council to let him clear his name of racist allegations
One of the fundamental principles of natural justice is the right to a fair hearing.
With that in mind, suspended Hamilton police board member Walt Juchniewicz is calling on the new city council to give him a chance to clear his name of allegations of racism.
In a letter to the mayor and city councillors, Juchniewicz’s lawyer is asking council to defer appointing a new citizen member to the board until Juchniewicz can “confront and refute” the allegations against him at a public hearing of the Ontario Civilian Police Commission (OCPC)
“He’s alleged to have made racist comments and he flatly and wholeheartedly rejects those assertions,” Juchniewicz’s lawyer Bernard Cummins said in an interview.
“You can’t just go around calling somebody a racist and then not having a hearing to let them clear their name.”
Deferring the upcoming new appointment is crucial because once Juchniewicz’s term expires or he’s replaced, OCPC will lose its jurisdiction and the hearing won’t take place, thus depriving him of an opportunity to wash away the stain.
Juchniewicz is the chair of Hamilton-based Juch-Tech Inc., a global satellite transmission company. Council appointed him to the sevenmember police board as the city’s sole citizen representative in 2013.
He was suspended from the board July 3 pending the result of an OCPC investigation into a code of conduct complaint by Tamer Nabhana, president of Force 1 Security, a local security company which provided guard services to Juch-Tech.
In October, OCPC decided there was sufficient evidence supporting Nabhana’s allegations that Juchniewicz discredited the police board to go to a formal hearing, though no date has been set.
Noting it’s a “touchy subject,” Nabhana declines to discuss the allegations until he’s consulted with four of his employees who are also involved.
“At this time I really don’t want to compromise or jeopardize anything that is going on by releasing something that’s not supposed to be released,” said Nabhana.
But Pamela Machado, another lawyer employed by Juchniewicz, has said the complaints include allegations Juchniewicz made anti-Muslim comments and used his crested police board jacket to intimidate.
Meanwhile, the OCPC is reviewing the Hamilton police board’s own handling of the complaints against Juchniewicz.
All in all, it’s a complicated canvas crammed with jumbled background details that include accusations by Force 1 against Juch-Tech of unpaid bills and counter accusations that one of the security company’s employees abused Juch-Tech’s company cat, which was apparently reported to the SPCA.
In another strange twist, Force I Security is now guarding city hall. According to city spokesperson John Hertel, the company was hired on a short-term contract without tendering because of an “abrupt ending” to the city’s relationship with the previous security firm.
Hertel calls the arrangement a “stopgap” measure, which began in January of this year, apparently before the allegations took place. Hertel says an RFP for a permanent provider is going out “imminently.”
The bottom line for lawyer Cummins is unless city councillors take steps to allow Juchniewicz to address the allegations at a formal public hearing they’ll be stripping him of the right to due process and fair play.
Interestingly, Cummins represented Andrew Pfeifer, the Hamilton police constable who was found not guilty of discreditable conduct after being accused of racial profiling by Coun. Matthew Green.
In asking council to postpone appointing a new citizen to the board, Cummins notes that Juchniewicz himself intends to reapply and that it would be “unfair” of council to consider his application until “he has been permitted to clear his name.”
How council will respond to the request is anybody’s guess. It’s a safe bet that veterans and newcomers alike are sick and tired of all the distracting allegations of code of conduct violations that have surrounded the board for the last four years. But ignoring an open plea for the natural justice of a fair hearing is not unlike sweeping muck under a rug.