Human Rights - SCC

In this criminal appeal, multiple accused sought to uphold a stay of proceedings granted for alleged pre-charge delay said to infringe security of the person under the Charter.

The trial judge had stayed the charges, and a majority in the provincial appellate court upheld that remedy.

The Supreme Court majority allowed the Crown’s appeal substantially for the dissenting appellate reasons, concluding a stay was not warranted on the record.

A dissenting justice at the Supreme Court would have dismissed the appeal substantially for the appellate majority’s reasons.

The Court considered an appeal arising during an indefinite strike by members of Les avocats et notaires de l’État québécois, where an adjournment request had been refused as part of an essential-services context.

By the hearing date, the strike had ended and a special statute had required a return to work.

The Court held the issue was moot and dismissed the appeal without costs.

It stated that dismissing the appeal did not endorse either the process used or the validity of the considerations identified by the Court of Appeal.

The appellant challenged the refusal of humanitarian and compassionate relief under s. 25(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act after unsuccessful refugee and risk-assessment proceedings.

The majority held that the officer unreasonably constrained discretion by treating 'unusual and undeserved or disproportionate hardship' as rigid legal thresholds rather than descriptive guidance.

The reasons emphasized holistic assessment, including mental health evidence, discrimination risk evidence, and the best interests of a directly affected child.

The appeal was allowed, the officer’s decision was set aside, and the matter was remitted for reconsideration.

A dissent would have upheld the refusal as reasonable under a stringent but flexible exceptional-relief framework.

The Court clarified the two-step framework for proving discrimination under s. 10 of the Quebec Charter and held that prima facie discrimination must be proven on a balance of probabilities.

It found insufficient evidence connecting the U.S. security-clearance refusal to Mr. Latif’s ethnic or national origin, making the tribunal’s finding unreasonable.

Both appeals were dismissed, with costs as ordered.

The Court allowed the appeal and restored the Federal Court decision dismissing the constitutional challenge to a First Nation election rule requiring Grade 12 education for candidates.

The claimant failed to show that the requirement had a disproportionate discriminatory impact on an enumerated or analogous ground, including age or residence on reserve, because the evidentiary record was insufficient.

The Court allowed the Crown’s appeal in a jury-representativeness challenge arising from the underrepresentation of Aboriginal on-reserve residents on the Kenora jury roll.

The majority held the constitutional obligation is to provide a fair opportunity for participation through reasonable efforts in source-list selection and notice delivery, not to guarantee a proportionate jury-roll composition.

The order for a new trial was set aside and the manslaughter conviction was reinstated.

The appeal concerned whether Charter damages may be claimed against the provincial Crown for wrongful prosecutorial non-disclosure without pleading malice.

The Court held that malice is not required, but imposed a stringent threshold requiring intentional withholding, actual or imputed knowledge of materiality and likely impairment of full answer and defence, a Charter breach, and causation of legally cognizable harm.

The reasons emphasized good-governance limits to prevent defensive prosecution practices and unmeritorious civil claims, while preserving remedies for serious constitutional violations.

The claimant was permitted to pursue an amended pleading for s. 24(1) damages based on the alleged disclosure failures leading to wrongful convictions and prolonged incarceration.

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.

A private Catholic high school challenged the Minister’s refusal to exempt its proposed alternative ethics and religious culture program.

The Court held that requiring Loyola to teach Catholicism and Catholic ethics from a neutral perspective disproportionately limited religious freedom.

It allowed the appeal, set aside the Minister’s decision, and remitted the matter for reconsideration.

The Court also held that teaching about other religions and their ethics could still be required in a neutral and respectful manner.

The appellants challenged Criminal Code provisions barring assistance in dying, arguing the absolute prohibition violated section 7 Charter rights of competent adults with grievous and irremediable medical conditions causing intolerable suffering.

The Court held the blanket ban was overbroad relative to Parliament’s objective of protecting vulnerable persons and was not justified under section 1.

It declared section 14 and section 241(b) of no force or effect to the extent they prohibit physician-assisted death for competent, consenting adults meeting the defined criteria.

The declaration of invalidity was suspended for 12 months to allow a legislative response.

The Court also awarded special costs on a full indemnity basis to the appellants, with partial cost responsibility assigned to British Columbia.

Current and former sex workers challenged three Criminal Code provisions prohibiting bawdy-houses, living on avails, and public communication for prostitution purposes.

The Court held the provisions deprived security of the person by materially increasing risks of violence and preventing safety-enhancing measures, and that the deprivations were not in accordance with fundamental justice due to gross disproportionality and overbreadth.

The Court affirmed that lower courts may revisit precedent when a new legal issue or significant evidentiary change is shown, and confirmed deference to trial findings on social and legislative facts absent palpable and overriding error.

Section 210 (as related to prostitution), section 212(1)(j), and section 213(1)(c) were declared unconstitutional.

Invalidity was suspended for one year to permit legislative response.

The Court substantially dismissed the appeals and held Alberta’s privacy legislation unjustifiably infringed freedom of expression in the labour-relations context.

The statutory scheme failed to provide a mechanism to balance expressive activities during lawful picketing against privacy interests.

The Court declared the statute invalid, suspended the declaration for 12 months, quashed the adjudicator’s order, and awarded costs to the union.

The appellants sought to file French-language exhibits attached to affidavits in constitutional litigation concerning minority-language education rights.

The majority held that British Columbia law required civil court proceedings, including exhibits relied on for their content, to be in English unless impracticable, and that this framework displaced residual inherent jurisdiction to admit untranslated French documents.

The Court further held that the 1731 English statute was received into provincial law and had not been displaced for this issue.

The dissent would have recognized continued inherent jurisdiction absent clear legislative ouster and remitted the matter for discretionary determination.

The appeal was dismissed, with costs awarded to the appellants.

The appellant human rights commission appealed a Court of Appeal decision reversing a tribunal finding that the respondent's flyers contravened the provincial hate speech prohibition.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the constitutionality of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code's prohibition on hate publications but struck the words "ridicules, belittles or otherwise affronts the dignity of" as not rationally connected to the legislative objective and not minimally impairing of Charter-protected expression.

The Court confirmed the modified Taylor definition of "hatred" as restricted to "detestation" and "vilification" and reinstated the tribunal's findings with respect to two of four flyers, while agreeing that two other flyers did not meet the threshold.

The Supreme Court considered whether provisions of the Civil Code of Quebec limiting family patrimony, compensatory allowance, partnership of acquests, and spousal support to married and civil union spouses infringed s. 15(1) of the Charter by excluding de facto spouses.

A 5-4 majority on s. 15(1) found the exclusion violated equality rights based on marital status.

However, the Chief Justice found the infringement justified under s. 1, joining the four judges who found no s. 15(1) violation, resulting in a 5-4 decision upholding the constitutionality of the impugned provisions.

The dissent would have struck down some or all of the provisions as unjustified discrimination against de facto spouses.

In a criminal appeal involving a niqab-wearing complainant at a preliminary inquiry, the Court addressed how to reconcile freedom of religion with fair-trial rights.

The majority held neither an absolute ban nor an absolute permission rule is acceptable, and adopted a contextual four-step framework.

A witness may be required to remove a niqab only where necessary to prevent a serious trial-fairness risk that cannot be avoided by alternatives, and where the benefits of removal outweigh the harms.

The appeal was dismissed and the matter remitted for application of that framework.

The Court held that the relevant service under the Human Rights Code was education generally, not a segregated special-education comparator class.

It found prima facie discrimination where a student with severe dyslexia was denied meaningful access to education after the closure of a diagnostic remediation centre and inadequate replacement supports.

The District failed to justify its conduct because it did not properly assess reasonable alternatives before cutting essential services.

The discrimination finding and individual compensation remedies were restored against the District, while broader systemic orders and provincial liability were set aside.

A 15-year-old sought an order requiring an internet provider to identify the creator of a fake sexualized profile and asked to proceed anonymously with a publication ban.

The Court held that objective harm to children from cyberbullying can justify anonymity without individualized evidence of specific harm.

It allowed anonymous proceedings to protect the child’s privacy and access to justice.

It declined to ban publication of non-identifying profile content because open court and press freedom outweighed further restriction once identity protection was in place.

The Court also set aside prior costs orders against the appellant and made no costs order in the Court.

In an administrative law appeal, the appellant municipality challenged a referral decision by a provincial human rights commission to appoint a board of inquiry regarding alleged discriminatory school-funding arrangements affecting a minority-language school community.

The Court held that referral decisions at this preliminary screening stage are reviewable on reasonableness, with strong judicial restraint against premature intervention in ongoing administrative processes.

The Court clarified that older jurisdictional framing tied to preliminary questions should no longer govern this context.

Applying the proper standard, the commission had a reasonable basis in law and on the evidence to refer the novel and complex complaints for inquiry.

Parents challenged a school board refusal to exempt their children from Quebec's mandatory Ethics and Religious Culture course, alleging violations of religious freedom and improper external influence.

The Court held that sincere belief alone is insufficient, and objective proof of interference is required.

On this record, the parents failed to prove the program infringed freedom of religion, and the refusal to exempt was upheld.