Thursday afternoon, the Quebec Court of Appeal will rule on the constitutionality of the Law on State Secularism. This judgment will be rendered almost three years after Quebec appealed the decision of the Superior Court of Quebec on “Bill 21”. Reminder of the facts in three parts.
What is the Law on State Secularism?
Even though it was controversial, the Law on State Secularism was still adopted by the National Assembly in June 2019. This prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by certain categories of state employees in within the framework of the exercise of their functions. This is particularly the case for primary and secondary school teachers, police officers, judges and Crown prosecutors.
Upon adoption, the Legault government inserted the override provision into its law in order to protect it from certain articles of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and avoid legal challenges. Several opponents, however, have gone to court with different arguments to try to have “law 21” invalidated.
What did the decision of the Superior Court of Quebec say?
In his decision rendered in April 2021, Judge Marc-André Blanchard of the Superior Court upheld the State Secularism Act, by virtue of the application of the exemption provisions in question. In his decision, he wrote that Quebec’s preventive use of the exemption provision seemed “excessive, because too broad”, but that it was “legally unassailable in the current state of the law”.
The magistrate had, however, exempted English-speaking school boards from the ban on the wearing of religious symbols and from the obligation of uncovering the face which are provided for in the law. He argued that it violated section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which grants constitutional rights to linguistic minorities in the management of their schools. The elected representatives of the National Assembly were also exempted by the court.
Why did Quebec appeal this Superior Court decision?
After this decision by Judge Blanchard, the Quebec government appealed the case. “The laws of Quebec must apply to everyone and throughout Quebec,” said the Attorney General of Quebec, Simon Jolin-Barrette. Prime Minister François Legault also strongly criticized the Superior Court’s judgment. “In Quebec, we protect the rights of English speakers to receive services in English. But there, it became clear that it would protect different values for English speakers, then French speakers,” he said.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Autonomous Teaching Federation had also filed litigation before the Court of Appeal, but for the opposite reasons. In the winter of 2022, the trial court heard eight separate appeals.
With François Carabin