Religious and civil liberties groups are asking the Quebec Court of Appeal to hear their request for an injunction to suspend the law imposing restrictions on wearing religious symbols for some provincial civil servants before it causes harm.
Muslim student Ichrak Nourel Hak, the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) announced Tuesday they had filed the request in court, saying the Quebec government is attempting “to create a state religion of secularism whose purpose and effect is to deny certain Quebeckers the right to fully participate in Quebec society.”
The original request for an injunction was turned down on July 18 by Quebec Superior Court Justice Michel Yergeau who found there was insufficient urgency to override the legislature and suspend the law. The judge ruled that, although a preliminary reading of the case suggests it may “violate a fundamental right under the Canadian Charter” of Rights and Freedoms, the threshold is very high to overrule the collective will represented by the government at a preliminary stage.
“To strike down a law in the name of individual interests, as noble as the intention behind the process might be, has to be ruled upon on the merits of the case, and not in a preliminary fashion,” the judge wrote.
Bochra Manaï, a spokeswoman for the NCCM, said Tuesday the potential harm is far from hypothetical and an exceptional law requires the application of exceptional protections. “A cohesive society is not build on divisive laws,” she said. “It is urgent to oppose this law, it affects real people and causes insecurity.”
After the injunction was rejected last week, provincial Diversity and Inclusion Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said he was satisfied with the ruling. “The Quebec government is determined to defend the legitimacy of the law,” he said in a statement. The government has not responded to the request for leave to appeal.
Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21 before it was passed into law, forbids prosecutors, police, teachers and a host of other government employees in “positions of authority” from wearing religious symbols while they work. Current employees are grandfathered for as long as they hold their jobs, but restrict the job prospects of Muslim women who wear a hijab, Jews who wear kippas and Sikhs who wear turbans, among others.
Quebec invoked the notwithstanding clause to protect the new law from being challenged for overriding basic rights such as freedom of religion, greatly reducing potential avenues for court challenge.
Muslim women are particularly touched by the ban. Dozens of women in hijabs work in schools or, such as in Ms. Hak’s case, are in training to become teachers. Ms. Hak studies education at the University of Montreal and plans to start working in 2020. The law also bans face-covering veils in public service jobs that interact with the public, and forces member of the public to uncover their faces if security or identification is at issue.
Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, the CCLA’s equality program director, said the law harks back to blatant discrimination from the past. “We are living decades after societies across Canada said no more barring people from stores, park benches, beaches and jobs based on their gender, race or religion,” she said. “That is the real result of this law. Telling people they cannot enter certain professions.”
Several religious rights groups have backed the court action including the World Sikh Organization and B’nai Brith. Both organizations have also called on both the Conservative Party and the Liberal government to abandon their cautious stand and to speak out more strongly in defence of religious minorities affected by Quebec’s law.
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