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The courtroom, which generally takes 4 months to resolve whether or not to permit a case to proceed, took greater than eight months
Printed Jan 23, 2025 • Final up to date 1 minute in the past • 4 minute learn
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Richard Wagner, Chief Justice of Canada, welcomes Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin throughout a ceremony on the Supreme Court docket of Canada in Ottawa, on Monday, Nov. 28, 2022. Photograph by Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS
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OTTAWA – Quebec’s controversial secularism legislation, often known as Invoice 21, might be debated earlier than the Supreme Court docket of Canada.
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The nation’s highest courtroom introduced Thursday that it’s going to hear the case of English Montreal Faculty Board (EMSB), et al. v. Legal professional Normal of Quebec, et al. over the legislation that was handed by the province’s Nationwide Meeting in 2019.
Functions for depart to attraction are all the time granted or denied with none rationalization from the courtroom. No dates have been offered for the hearings.
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The courtroom, which generally takes 4 months to resolve whether or not to permit a case to proceed, took greater than eight months on this extremely political case.
Reactions rapidly erupted in La Belle Province, with the Legal professional Normal of Quebec, Simon Jolin-Barrette, declaring that his authorities “will fight to the end to defend the Act respecting the laicity of the State”.
The plaintiff, EMSB, mentioned the choice provides it one other probability to strike down a legislation that “conflicts with our values and our mission and with those of all Quebecers”.
“This legislation runs contrary to what we teach with regard to respect for individual rights and religious freedoms… Its very adoption was contrary to our societal goal of promoting our peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic Quebec,” mentioned EMSB Chair Joe Ortona.
Premier François Legault has made affirming state secularism a central a part of his Coalition Avenir Québec authorities. Invoice 21 prohibits sure public sector employees, resembling judges, law enforcement officials, lecturers and jail guards, from sporting spiritual symbols at work and requires them to carry out their duties with their faces uncovered.
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Nevertheless, the federal government has used the however clause of the structure to protect the legislation from the courts. Each 5 years, this provision have to be renewed by Quebec’s legislature. It was renewed final yr.
“The Quebec government will use the parliamentary sovereignty provision for as long as necessary to defend our societal choices,” Jolin-Barrette mentioned.
The CAQ authorities and Premier Legault have all the time maintained that the legislation is “reasonable.”
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Whereas the invoice is unpopular and extremely controversial outdoors Quebec, the provincial authorities has maintained for greater than 5 years that Quebecers are largely in favour of it. Nevertheless, a latest examine discovered that about 51 per cent of Quebecers “agree that neutrality is exercised by banning religious symbols.”
“This proportion has remained fairly stable over the three years for which we have data,” the examine famous.
Nonetheless, the legislation has been challenged by many teams on a number of grounds, together with minority language instructional rights and gender equality proper, first earlier than the Quebec Superior Court docket after which earlier than the Quebec Court docket of Attraction. Each courts dominated that the ban on sporting spiritual symbols couldn’t apply to MNAs.
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The Superior Court docket sided with the English Montreal Faculty Board on the bottom of minority language instructional rights. Nevertheless, the province’s attraction courtroom overturned the choice in February 2024.
Bloc Québécois Chief Yves-François Blanchet mentioned it was “always legitimate to ask the courts to resolve a dispute or disagreement,” however that the federal authorities’s intention to intervene on this case was “unacceptable.”
“Where there is a problem is when the government and all the federal parties are in favor of Quebecers’ money being used to finance the challenge of a legitimate Quebec law all the way to the Supreme Court,” Blanchet informed reporters.
The federal authorities introduced a number of months in the past that it supposed to intervene earlier than the Supreme Court docket of Canada if it granted the listening to. The Trudeau authorities has but to answer Thursday’s choice.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation, which desires to intervene within the case, mentioned it was “pleased” with the Supreme Court docket’s choice.
“We look forward to arguing our case that Bill 21 is an unconstitutional law that harms people who are already marginalized and has no place in Canadian society,” mentioned the CCLA on social medias.
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Justice Mahmud Jamal introduced final yr that he had determined to recuse himself from the case to keep away from “distraction” after Quebec’s lawyer common and others raised considerations about his potential for bias.
Justice Jamal was chair of the board of administrators of the Canadian Civil Liberties Affiliation when the group challenged Invoice 21 in Superior Court docket in 2019. The courtroom indicated that “Justice Jamal took no part in the judgment”.
Extra to come back…
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