religious exemptions
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First of All Our Laws
Natural law in a Québec Court of Appeal decision in 1957 Continue reading
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Splitting a Baby
There came a Catholic school and a minister of education unto the Supreme Court, and stood before it. And the school said, “Oh my Lords and my Ladies, I am a private Catholic school, and am delivered of a programme for teaching a class on Ethics and Religious Culture through the prism of my Catholic faith. Continue reading
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No Blurred Lines
Last week, I published a lament for the Charter challenge to the Canadian citizenship oath, which the Supreme Court refused to hear, over at the Policy Options blog. Philippe Lagassé has published a thoughtful response, arguing that contrary what I have been saying all along, the case really was about “the legitimacy of the Crown” as Continue reading
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A Parade of Horribles
I wrote yesterday about the decision of the Court of Appeal for Ontario in McAteer v. Canada (Attorney General), 2014 ONCA 578, which upheld the constitutionality of the oath of allegiance to the Queen which would-be Canadian citizens are required to swear. As I said in that post, I believe that that the Court’s decision Continue reading
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Mammon & Co.
I have already blogged about the question whether corporations can assert religious rights, for example to ask for exemptions from generally applicable laws if these laws contradict their ― or their owners’ ― religious beliefs. In a decision issued this morning, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, which Eugene Volokh summarizes here, the Supreme Court of Continue reading
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Not Established
I wrote in my last post about a brief recently submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that an act of Congress which exempts religious believers from the application of any law that interferes with their religious beliefs and practices unless the law is the least restrictive means to realize a compelling government objective is Continue reading
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Room for Disagreement
The issue of the respective roles of courts and legislatures in defending ― and defining ― individual rights and liberties is a controversial one. Some, like Jeremy Waldron, argue that protecting rights is the legislatures’ job, at least in the last resort. Others, like Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West, apparently believe that rights are the exclusive preserve Continue reading
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Storm and Havoc
Time for more shameless self-promotion, after my rant on Thursday about not being cited by the Québec Court of Appeal. A paper of mine, called “Storm and Havoc: The Rule of Law and Religious Exemptions,” is coming out any time now in the Revue Juridique Thémis de l’Université de Montréal, a mere three years after Continue reading
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Facing Justice ― English Version
I wrote last year about the Supreme Court’s decision on whether a witness in a criminal proceeding could testify while wearing a niqab, a full-face veil, R. v. N.S., 2012 SCC 72, [2012] 3 SCR 726. Of course, the questions about balancing trial fairness and freedom of religion which the Court had to confront in that case do not only Continue reading
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Can’t Work
The most serious argument I have seen a representative of the Québec government invoke in defence of its proposed “Charter of Values” is Bernard Drainville’s claim, in an interview to the Globe, that “[w]orking for the state is not a right, it is a choice that comes with certain responsibilities.” The argument is that since Continue reading
Double Aspect 