Invoking the notwithstanding clause, as Quebec has done with Bill 21, does not shield a law from being reviewed by a court for violating rights.
https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2019/faulty-wisdom-notwithstanding-clause/?fbclid=IwAR0c-a7zS_wmlY72cf7Nz5z1zpTkgQ6U8d56OLXbXvDvPVdjS3Yrm2wGvlA
Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has often been described, including by the Supreme Court of Canada, as an “override provision” that allows legislation to override Charter rights and freedoms. According to received wisdom, the notwithstanding clause bars judicial review of legislation that is shielded by it. Quebec Premier François Legault so supposes when he explains his government’s recourse to the notwithstanding clause in Bill 21, An Act respecting the Laicity of the State, as a way to “avoid lengthy judicial battles.”And yet the text of section 33 does not support this received wisdom. The word “override” appears nowhere and there is no mention of “judicial review.” Rather, the text of section 33 focuses on shielding a law’s “operation.” It states that declaring that a law shall operate notwithstanding one or more Charter rights will secure for the legislation “such operation as it would have but for the provision of this Charter referred to in the declaration.” The equivalent term in the French version of section 33(2) is “effet,” providing that a law invoking the notwithstanding clause “a l’effet qu’elle aurait sauf la disposition en cause de la charte.”
In the Charter’s nearly 40 years of existence, no court has addressed the meaning of this phrase in section 33(2), let alone settled it. The Supreme Court of Canada in Ford v. Quebec (1988) ruled on the formal requirements in section 33(1) for invoking the notwithstanding clause. But the Court was not asked about, nor did it rule on, the significance of shielding a law’s operation. What does it mean?