DDA Decline/termination decisions: Meaning of discrimination
Decline/termination
decisions: Meaning of discrimination
Summaries
of decisions by Disability Discrimination Commissioner or delegate to
decline complaints, and of the President of HREOC or delegate reviewing
such decisions; or (from 13 April 2000) decisions by the President or
delegate to terminate complaints.
Last updated: April 2000. Compilation and release of these summaries beyond April 2000 has not been authorised by the Commission
Companion
dog not assistance animal for DDA purposes
A
man complained that he had been discriminated against by a country rail
service provider's refusal to permit him to be accompanied in the passenger
carriage by his companion animal, a chihuhua dog. The President confirmed
the Acting Disability Discrimination Commissioner's decision to decline
the complaint. She found that the fact that the man had trained the animal
to provide him with companionship was not sufficient to establish that
it had been trained to alleviate the effects of his disability (2 December
1998).
Associate
of person with a disability remains an associate after person with a disability
dies
Reviewing
a decision by a delegate of the Disability Discrimination Commissioner,
the President decided that an associate of a person with a disability
had not ceased to be an associate for the purposes of the DDA when the
person with a disability died (31 October 1996).
Imputation of disability is not discrimination in
itself
Confirming
a decision by a delegate of the Disability Discrimination Commissioner
declining a complaint, the President decided that the alleged imputation
of a disability could not in itself be considered unlawful discrimination
under the DDA. There was no evidence in this case that the imputation
of disability, if it had occurred, had led to any less favourable treatment
of the complainant compared to someone without the same (imputed) disability
in similar circumstances (19 September 1996).