MONTREAL — Jewish groups are watching with interest if a court will render an opinion on whether Quebecers’ religious attire affects their access to justice.
Constitutional lawyer Julius Grey is scheduled to present a motion in Quebec Superior Court on April 30 seeking a legal opinion clarifying the right to wear such clothing as hijabs, kippot and turbans in the province’s judicial system.
Grey and fellow Montreal lawyer Mathieu Bouchard filed the motion on behalf of Rania El-Alloul, the Muslim woman who was told in February by Quebec Court Judge Eliana Marengo to remove her hijab or her petition to get back her impounded car would not be heard. El-Alloul refused and the judge postponed the case. The matter was settled in March and the vehicle was returned.
Grey said this matter is about freedom of religion, equality and access to the courts.
“We are asking to establish a principle, a principle that is a legal one: that you cannot refuse to hear a litigant because of a hijab, a turban, a kippah,” Grey was reported saying.
“A judge has to sit and judge between all the people who come, and we would like that to be made clear to all.”
B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said it supports the motion for clarification on Quebecers’ rights. Both organizations felt the judge had no legal grounds to turn away El-Alloul from her court because she was wearing a traditional head scarf.
Marengo’s refusal to hear El-Alloul if she wore her hijab is “an apparent violation of religious freedom protected by the Quebec and Canadian Charters of Rights,” said lawyer Allan Adel, national chair of B’nai Brith’s League for Human Rights.
“A legal principle needs to be established that a judge cannot refuse to hear a litigant because he or she may be wearing a hijab, turban or kippah.”
David Ouellette, CIJA’s associate director for Quebec public affairs, told The CJN that Marengo’s decision was “wrong-headed and a denial of justice which should not be allowed to stand as a legal precedent.”
It has no basis in law and went beyond even the Parti Québécois proposed charter of values, Ouellette pointed out. That charter would only have banned judges from wearing religious symbols on the grounds that they represent the state and should be – and look – neutral.
Ouellette said he has never heard of someone wearing a kippah being turned away from a court in Quebec.