The Supreme Court has ruled: Mike Ward did not cross the line by making jokes about the young singer Jérémy Gabriel. The comedian will therefore not have to pay 35,000 dollars to the latter.
“We believe that Mr. Gabriel was singled out for being targeted by Mr. Ward’s comments. However, considering the Tribunal’s conclusion [des droits de la personne du Québec] according to which Mr. Ward “did not choose Jeremy because of his handicap”, put well “because he is a public figure”, one is forced to conclude that this distinction is not based on a prohibited ground. On its own, this conclusion is enough to decide the appeal, ”the Supreme Court concluded, in a very divided decision, handed down on Friday morning.
The highest court in the country has thus put an end to this legal battle which began almost a decade ago and in which two fundamental values clashed: the right to freedom of expression and the right to dignity.
The five majority judges noted that Mike Ward chose to make jokes on Jérémy Gabriel not because of his handicap but rather because of his notoriety, like other famous personalities whom he makes fun of in his shows. His taunts cannot therefore be considered as proof of discrimination under the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
” [Les propos litigieux] exploit, rightly or wrongly, a discomfort for entertainment, but they do little more than that ”, we can read in the decision. “Placed in their context, his words cannot be taken at face value. Although Mr. Ward utters spiteful words and shameful remarks related to Mr. Gabriel’s disability, his words do not lead the audience to treat him as an inferior being. “
Remember that Jérémy Gabriel, now 24 years old, suffers from Treacher Collins syndrome, which is characterized by deformities of the head and severe deafness. In one of the numbers of his show Mike Ward exhibits himself, presented some 230 times between 2010 and 2013, the comedian openly mocked the hearing aid of the young singer (then a minor), as well as his performances in front of Celine Dion and Pope Benedict XVI, in 2006. In this same issue , the comedian called “little Jeremy” as “milky” and “not killable”.
Last chance
By addressing the Supreme Court, Mike Ward was playing his very last card to turn the tide in his favor and that of freedom of expression.
The Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ruled in 2016 that Mike Ward had gone too far and that Jérémy Gabriel, as well as his mother, Sylvie Gabriel, had been victims of discrimination. The court ordered the comedian to pay them respectively $ 35,000 and $ 7,000 in moral and punitive damages for a series of jokes about the young singer’s disability.
In 2019, Mike Ward had already sought for the first time to overturn the Tribunal’s decision. But in vain. The Quebec Court of Appeal had confirmed its verdict and demanded that Mike Ward pay the $ 35,000 in punitive and moral damages to Jérémy Gabriel. The comedian, however, was released from the obligation to pay $ 7,000 to his mother, Sylvie Gabriel.
Further details will follow.