(Montreal) A Muslim organization and a civil liberties group are trying to ask the Quebec Court of Appeal to overturn the trial’s decision to uphold the ban on any space to pray in public schools.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, which are challenging the ministerial directive, hope to at least get the ban suspended until the case is heard on the merits.
But last June, Quebec Superior Court Judge Lukasz Granosik refused to suspend the ban through an interim interlocutory injunction. He considered that the two organizations had not proven that it was “urgent” to suspend the decree of the Quebec government while waiting for the case to be heard on the merits by a court.
Olga Redko, who represents the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said Monday in the Court of Appeal in Montreal that the lower court ruling failed to properly consider the “irreparable harm” that would be caused to Muslim students and the urgency of the situation.
Government lawyer Isabelle Brunet maintains that Judge Granosik applied the law well and that the appeal has little chance of succeeding.
Stephen Brown, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, says this legal challenge is important because it’s about people having the freedom to pray when and how they want.
The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, invoking the State Secularism Actin April banned public schools in Quebec from making prayer spaces available to students.
Mr. Drainville added that students would still be allowed to pray discreetly and silently at school. The two bodies, however, stressed that Muslim prayers require “physical action”.
The injunction petition was filed on behalf of a 16-year-old Muslim student at a Montreal-area high school who had been granted a place to pray during lunchtime, but lost that site after the April ministerial decree took effect.