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State-sponsored council prayer breached neutrality and discriminated against non-belief.
On a statutory appeal from a specialized human rights tribunal, the Court held that judicial review standards apply, with correctness for the scope of state religious neutrality and reasonableness for most discrimination and evidentiary determinations.
The municipal council prayer, viewed in context, was found to be a religious practice by a public authority that breached the state’s duty of neutrality.
The practice created discriminatory interference with freedom of conscience and religion that was more than trivial or insubstantial.
The by-law attempting to regulate the prayer could be declared inoperative in relation to the complainant, and the remedial orders and damages were largely upheld subject to limits on the tribunal’s power to issue a general invalidity declaration.
The appeal was allowed.
