(Montreal) A civil rights organization and a national Muslim advocacy group are launching a legal challenge to the Quebec decree banning prayer rooms in public schools.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCMC) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CLAC) are seeking judicial review of the government decree on behalf of a plaintiff whose teenage son had sought a space to pray with other Muslim students, in a high school in the Montreal area last October.
According to the court filing, the teenager had become more devout over the summer, and had started praying five times a day in accordance with his Muslim faith, including once a day at school during school hours. dinner. Sometimes he prayed with a small group of students, indoors or outdoors.
The document says that in October, a staff member told students that prayer was not allowed on school grounds. Following this incident, the students asked for a space where they could pray without being blamed, which was granted to them as early as January for about 20 to 30 boys and girls.
A supervisor controlled access to the prayer room, and their prayer took place “without any problem” from January to May 2023, can we read in the same pages.
Access to this room was withdrawn from them in May, after the school began to enforce the ban of the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville.
The minister had said the concept of prayer rooms ran counter to Quebec’s policy of state secularism, and his April 19 directive states that school space cannot be used for religious practices such as than manifest prayers.
The new rules came after reports came out of at least two Montreal-area schools allowing students to gather on school property for prayer. They apply to primary and secondary schools, as well as vocational schools and adult education centers within the public network. They do not extend to private schools or aboriginal school boards.
Bernard Drainville said he could not completely ban prayer and that students who wanted to pray should do so discreetly and silently.
The CNMC and CCLA say the decree violates student rights, including the rights to freedom of religion and equality guaranteed by the Canadian and Quebec Charters of Rights and Freedoms.
“Both the decree and the decision (of the school) infringe the freedom of religion of (the student) and other religious students throughout Quebec, a fundamental right protected both by the Charter (of Quebec) and by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the filing reads.
“The decree also infringes the right to equality protected by the Quebec Charter, in particular by destroying the obligation of reasonable accommodation imposed on any public body by this charter”, it is also indicated.
The two organizations want to see the decree invalidated, but in the meantime they are also asking for a stay of its application by the school until the case is heard on the merits.
Friday’s lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court in Montreal comes just over a week after several Muslim organizations also announced they were taking the province to court over the prayer room ban, saying that it is discriminatory and violates the Charter rights to freedom of religion and association.
In this case, the groups, including the Canadian Muslim Forum and several local groups, are seeking a judicial review of the ban and having it declared unconstitutional. The organizations are also asking for a judgment on how secularism and the notion of religious neutrality are interpreted by the government.
As with the previous case, a Bernard Drainville press secretary says there will be no comment on the most recent legal challenge.