A court is considering Tuesday morning the ban on prayer rooms in Quebec schools. A judge is asked to put this prohibition on hold pending a final judgment on the validity of the government decree.
Invoking the secularism of the state and its public educational institutions, the CAQ government sent a directive to schools last April so that their premises were no longer used for prayers. This directive was quickly supported by a decree.
The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, had then affirmed that such premises were “simply not compatible with the principle of secularism and with the Law on secularism” of the Quebec State, known before its adoption as Bill 21.
A student, who was then told by his Montreal high school that he could no longer pray inside or outside school premises, is asking that the decree be invalidated, because it is contrary to his freedom of religion protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He is supported in court by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (ACLC), who deem the CAQ directive unconstitutional.
The latter believes that the decree has a disproportionate impact on students of Muslim faith, because their prayers are not silent or discreet, explained Laura Berger, legal counsel at the ACLC.
“It sends a message of exclusion,” she argued at a press conference on Tuesday in front of the Montreal courthouse, shortly before the hearing.
But the wording of the decree is broad enough to impact those who practice other religions, Berger added.
And to those who say that schools are places of learning and not of worship, the CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, Stephen Brown, counters that students also have emotional needs when they are at home. school and that the decree requires them to leave “a part of themselves when they leave home”.
Other organizations had also filed a lawsuit to overturn the decree. It is possible for the two appeals to be joined so that there is a single trial.