14 July 2019

CdnPr: Quebec weighing legal options as judge suspends face-covering ban

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-weighing-legal-options-as-judge-suspends-face-covering-ban/

The Quebec government will wait for its lawyers to study a court decision this week that temporarily suspended a law banning people from covering their faces when receiving or giving a public service before deciding on its next step ...

Section 10 of Quebec’s law on religious neutrality, passed in October 2017, requires everyone to show their faces when receiving or giving a public service ...

Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard ruled Thursday that Section 10 cannot enter into force until it goes through judicial review because of the irreparable harm it will cause Muslim women ...



A judge suspended Section 10 in December 2017 until the government published clear guidelines under which someone could apply for a religious accommodation to the rules ...

The Quebec government published the guidelines in May, and they were set to come into force on July 1 ...

Blanchard ruled the guidelines are not clear enough, and confusion and uncertainty still exists regarding how the accommodation process would be applied ...


[Premier] Couillard wouldn’t concede the law was confusing, instead attacking opposition parties and challenging them to explain how their proposals would stand up to the court test, given they’ve vowed to go even further ...






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