Procedures for dealing with complaints before the Human Rights Commission are being made up on an ad hoc basis, it was claimed in Supreme Court yesterday.

"I'm still at a loss at what is the correct procedure for dealing with human rights complaints," said lawyer Jeffrey Elkinson as a hearing into the ongoing dispute between Hardell Entertainment Limited and the Bank of Bermuda drew to a close yesterday.

"It's some sort of quagmire. It's a marshland of non-existent procedures that are devised ad hoc."

The bank is seeking to have the court quash a decision by the Community and Cultural Affairs Minister to send a racial discrimination complaint against it to a public board of enquiry.

The bank has argued that the Minister was "apparently biased" against it saying that Harold Darrell, the owner of Hardell Entertainment, had persisted in communicating with him in order to have him refer the matter to the board of enquiry. The Minister, Randolph Horton, heard him out without giving the bank the opportunity to be heard and that was unfair, Mr. Elkinson argued.

Ian Kawaley, of Juris Law Chambers, is representing Mr. Darrell, while Melvin Douglas of the Attorney General's Chambers is fighting the bank's action.

The dispute, now in its third year, started when Mr. Darrell filed filed suit against the bank alleging breach of confidentiality.

Four months later, in October, 2000, he lodged the racial discrimination complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC), saying that the bank had found in an internal inquiry that there had been a breach of confidentiality but refused to act on its findings because he is black. The bank declined to participate in the human rights case, arguing that it was out of time, and the HRC made moves to refer the matter to the Minister.

But Mr. Darrell was later informed by the then Executive Officer of the HRC, Neville Darrell, that the complaint had been dismissed - a move leading to allegations that then Human Affairs Minister Terry Lister had interfered in the process.

Mr. Darrell went to court to have the decision reviewed and obtained a consent order that the HRC will reopen the case.

But the court then stayed all human rights proceedings after the bank applied to be made party to the review arguing that it was the affected party.

Community and Cultural Affairs Minister Randolph Horton, who replaced Mr. Lister, referred Mr. Darrell's complaint to a board of inquiry, kicking off the current round of litigation.

While the Government has argued that the decision should stand, the bank said that the Minister did not have the power to send the case to the board of inquiry because of the court-ordered stay and because the case had been dismissed and dealt with.

But Government argued that the complaint was not dismissed because proper dismissal procedures were not followed.

The court heard a sworn affidavit of former HRC Executive Officer Neville Darrell alleging that Mr. Lister had improperly interfered with the process and ordered him to dismiss the complaint. But that was contradicted by another affidavit sworn by Human Affairs Director Kenneth Dill. In any case, Mr. Douglas argued, a quorum of the Commission members make the decision to dismiss a complaint, and Mr. Neville Darrell had acted without authority.

But Mr. Elkinson insisted that even the court supervised agreement, drafted by the Attorney General's chambers, between HRC and Harold Darrell referred to the complaint as being dismissed.

The relationship between the bank and Mr. Darrell had started to sour when it sought repayment for a loan and he asked for more and was turned down, the lawyer told the court.

Assistant Justice Phillip Storr will give his judgment in due course.