What happens after I make a complaint to VEOHRC?

After you make a complaint, VEOHRC will decide whether they can help. They will contact you if they need more information to decide.

If VEOHRC does not accept your complaint, they will contact you to tell you why and give you information about other organisations that may be able to help.

If VEOHRC does accept your complaint, they will contact you to discuss the issue more and find out what you are wanting. The person who will contact you is called the conciliator – this is the person who tries to sort out the issue between you and the prison or the other person.

The conciliator will also contact the prison or other person involved, give them a copy of your complaint and invite them to participate in conciliation. Scroll down for more information about what conciliation means.

If the prison or other person agrees to do conciliation, the conciliator will suggest the best way to go about it.

Conciliation

Conciliation is a discussion between you, the prison or other person, and a conciliator. A conciliator is an impartial person (which means they don’t take sides), who will hear both sides and try to come up with a solution to the issue that everyone agrees with.

Conciliation can happen through a meeting on a certain date, which usually goes for 2 or 3 hours. The meeting can be over the phone or through a video-conference.

If both you and the prison or other person agree, conciliation can be done without a meeting. In that case, the conciliator shares information between you and the prison or other person, without you having to speak to each other.

VEOHRC uses conciliation to try and solve complaint issues without having to go to a court or tribunal.

Important: you can have a support person with you at conciliation.

What can happen at conciliation?

Conciliators cannot order the prison/another person to do something.What they do is listen to both sides and try to help come up with solutions.

Some of the things that could come out of conciliation are:

• Financial compensation
• An apology
• The prison or other person acknowledging the distress caused to you
• Changes to the prison’s policies and ways they do things
• A commitment by the prison to do discrimination training with staff

If you reach an agreement with the prison or other person, you may want to have it written down. An agreement usually includes a condition that you won’t take any other court action about the issue. The conciliator can help you write out an agreement.

If you cannot reach an agreement at conciliation, VEOHRC will close your complaint.

Important: it can take a few months before a conciliation meeting happens. If you leave prison before you get a meeting, you can still do conciliation. You will just do it from the community instead.

Source: VEOHRC website