Denying Quebec woman day in court because she was wearing of hijab went against Canadian law principles: judge

2016/10/08 Leave a comment

Surprised that the judge, while making the correct ruling in the particular case, refused to make a general ruling that wearing a hijab (or kippa, or turban) is permissible in court. Hard to understand what hypothetical situation he was thinking of:

Seventeen months after a Quebec Court judge told her to remove her hijab in court, Rania El-Alloul has received partial vindication from the justice system, but no guarantee it will not happen again.

In a ruling released this week, Superior Court Justice Wilbrod Décarie writes, “The court has a lot of sympathy for (El-Alloul) and deeply regrets how she was treated.”

Judge Eliana Marengo’s February 2015 refusal to hear El-Alloul in the “secular space” of a courtroom unless she removed her Muslim head scarf flew in the face of a 2012 Supreme Court of Canada decision that a witness was entitled to testify in a face-covering niqab, Décarie found.

But he did not issue the judgment sought by El-Alloul — declaring that her rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been breached and affirming her right to appear in court wearing her hijab.

“Each case is a specific case that has to be evaluated in the context of the witness’s court appearance,” Décarie wrote. “It cannot be declared in advance, absolutely and out of context, that El-Alloul will have the right to wear the hijab during her future appearances before the Court of Quebec. Nobody can predict the future.”

What happens next, I don’t know. I hope no one ever feels what I felt in the past

Julius Grey, one of El-Alloul’s lawyers, called Décarie’s finding “wrong in law and very dangerous.” It opens the door to litigants trying to destabilize a witness by filing motions asking she remove her hijab.

“A person will feel insecure before the courts,” Grey said, adding he favours an appeal.

The lawyer said the issue is important as restrictions on religious dress become more common.

“It’s not a particularly Quebec matter. All over the West there is an unhealthy irritation, I would say, with religious garb, with religious practice, with other customs,” Grey said.

Source: Denying Quebec woman day in court because she was wearing of hijab went against Canadian law principles: judge | National Post

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Opinion: Let’s welcome refugees generously, but abandon multiculturalism: Julius Grey

2015/09/17 Leave a comment

I don’t think Grey understands multiculturalism in Canada – it is not deep, based on collective or group rights, but shallow, based on individual rights and within the overall constitutional and legal framework and that provides accommodation within that context, precisely as he describes his ideal:

This means that generosity and hospitality are not only morally right, but are also the prudent and most advantageous attitudes to take. Certainly, the flow must be regulated so that the health and education systems of home countries are not overwhelmed and the immigrants are integrated smoothly and fairly. Planning is needed at an international level to distribute the new arrivals and to determine the rate of movement. However, the building of walls and the use of military force will cause suffering and achieve nothing.

When Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Viking and Norman French created the English and Gauls, Latins and Germanic Franks created the French, the results were permanent and irrevocable because the constituent groups were fused. Those who fear multiculturalism are not entirely wrong. A better model, especially with vast movements like the present one, is complete integration and inter-marriage with a new culture evolving that contains contributions from all. If groups merely coexist side by side, sooner or later a crisis develops and is exploited by demagogues to breed hate.

When the coming great migration occurs — and the current crisis is only the tip of the iceberg — it will be necessary for the host state to become totally neutral on religious questions, but also to provide a single system of schools, hospitals and social services for all. Individual accommodation that encourages attendance at public institutions is a positive thing, but collective or institutional accommodation is not.

Further, the host countries should adopt laws similar to Quebec’s in order to maintain a common language for all, while encouraging knowledge of other languages. The abandonment of multiculturalism will assuage fears that lead people to support anti-immigrant parties and will create a solidarity around social issues that is often absent in divided societies. It will also encourage individual autonomy and freedom, since everyone will have a different shade of skin colour and an individual family history, free from dogma and from pressure to live in any particular way or to marry any prescribed type of person.

Freedom and social justice both depend on our ability to create a society which has, on the one hand, citizens of myriad origins and, on the other, no barriers between them.

Source: Opinion: Let’s welcome refugees generously, but abandon multiculturalism | Montreal Gazette

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