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September 02, 2009

Canada's hate speech law ruled unconstitutional

It is remotely possible today was a good day for freedom and a proud day to be Canadian. Canadian Human Rights Tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis has ruled that Section 13 is unconstitutional as it is in violation of the Charter right to freedom of expression (decision here in full).

And, we might add, common decency and common sense.

The decision released this morning by Tribunal chair Athanasios Hadjis appears to strip the Canadian Human Rights Commission of its controversial legal mandate to pursue hate on the Internet, which it has strenuously defended against complaints of censorship.

It also marks the first major failure of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, an anti-hate law that was conceived in the 1960s to target racist telephone hotlines, then expanded in 2001 to the include the entire Internet, and for the last decade used almost exclusively by one complainant, activist Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman.

I am coming to the conversation a bit late in the day, obviously. So much so that a comment I left at Blazing Cat Fur this morning (now featuring a comprehensive link round up) has morphed into a post at Halls of Macademia (with fun comments, as always).

I might as well reprint it here as well.

To speak in terms of an arguably inappropriate metaphor, can a judge rule his own court illegitimate?

If so, by whose authority?

I remain clueless on the subject. Jay Currie, however, makes an interesting observation; read the whole thing for context.

This drops the Harper government squarely in the middle. To, perhaps, restore s. 13’s constitutionality, Parliament would have to repeal s. 54. But would Harper be able to convince his strongly anti-s.13 caucus and Party to do anything to help the censors? I don’t think so.

The practical result being that Harper’s policy of total inaction has switched from a pro-censorship position to an anti-censorship position.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at September 2, 2009 03:23 PM

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