Pitasanna Shanmugathas is a third-year student at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. He has been actively following developments in this discrimination case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal member ruled last week that the government cannot invoke national security laws to indefinitely delay discrimination complaints. The Tribunal decision comes as a victory for a former refugee who says Canada’s Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) exploited and discriminated against him for more than two decades.
Kagusthan Ariaratnam—a Tamil former refugee from Sri Lanka who was forced to join a militant group as a child soldier—alleges that CSIS coerced him to work for nine years as an unpaid informant. He also contends that the agency shared his private mental health records with prospective employers, sabotaging his efforts to secure work elsewhere.
Ariaratnam says CSIS refused to hire him despite his qualifications and experience, even as the agency continued to benefit from intelligence tips he provided about Tamil militant organizations. He also asserts that the agency discriminated against him based on his race, ethnicity, religious identity as a Muslim, and mental health conditions—including depression, and what he describes as false diagnoses of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, which he argues resulted from CSIS inaccurately telling police and doctors that he was delusional when he was, in fact, following their instructions.
After filing a complaint in January 2018, Ariaratnam says it took more than six years for the complaint to reach the tribunal, and he was unable to submit detailed allegations until February 2025. At that time, CSIS asked the Canadian government to invoke the national security doctrine, which would transfer the case to a different oversight body: the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA).
Both CSIS and the Canadian Human Rights Commission argued that this move would pause the tribunal proceedings indefinitely, allowing NSIRA to complete its review, after which the commission would decide whether to return the case to the tribunal—a process with no clear timeline.
Tribunal Member Ashley Bressette-Martinez rejected the argument advanced by CSIS and the Human Rights Commission, finding the law is silent on whether tribunal proceedings should be paused when agencies invoke national security laws. Reasoning that such power conflicts with the tribunal’s independence from the commission, she determined that once a case reaches the tribunal, it belongs to the complainant—not the government agencies involved.
“The power to withdraw a complaint before the Tribunal belongs to a complainant and no other party has that power,” Bressette-Martinez wrote.
Ariaratnam’s lawyer, Nicholas Pope, told JURIST in an exclusive interview that Bressette-Martinez’s decision blocks a delay tactic commonly used by agencies. “It’s quite common for federal agencies to invoke national security in human rights cases involving CSIS or immigration matters with individuals from areas of the world that the government stereotypes as being affiliated with terrorism,” Pope explained. “This decision limits the use of NSIRA as a tool to delay human rights proceedings.”
Ariaratnam told JURIST his seven-year legal battle has devastated him financially and emotionally. “I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees. There were moments I felt completely alone and defeated, especially when the process dragged on for years without progress,” he said. “But I kept going because I knew what happened to me was wrong.”
The allegations at issue date back to events that began in 2000. At that time, Ariaratnam says a CSIS agent threatened to report him to immigration authorities if he refused to become an informant. The agent allegedly promised to hire him once he became a permanent resident in 2002. Despite this promise, CSIS never hired him, even after he repeatedly applied for about 22 years, according to his complaint.
In 2016, Ariaratnam had applied for a security guard position on Parliament Hill. He explained that CSIS shared his confidential mental health information with House of Commons officials, who then cancelled his security clearance application. A 2020 NSIRA report confirms that CSIS representatives met with House officials and shared with them Ariaratnam’s mental health records.
“My medical history had nothing to do with my ability to perform the job,” Ariaratnam stated. “It was shared without my consent and used to deny me a security clearance—effectively branding me as ‘unfit’ because of my mental health status.”
In his complaint, Ariaratnam seeks $3.8 million in damages. Pope says the complaint’s central claim is straightforward: “His CSIS handler promised him that he would be hired once he obtained his permanent residency, and she said he had the suitable skills. Then he was not hired despite applying multiple times.”
The tribunal noted that pausing the proceedings could be illogical if it ultimately resolved the pending dispute over which allegations should be included in the case—an outcome that could eliminate the national security concerns entirely.
The case will now proceed, with the tribunal retaining authority to manage how any national security issues are addressed.
Featured image: Image by Sang Hyun Cho from Pixabay