The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled that Section 13, Canada’s much maligned human rights hate speech law, is an unconstitutional violation of the Charter right to free expression because of its penalty provisions.
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.
[…]
Mr. Hadjis’ decision to reject the law as unconstitutional, in light of its penalty provisions, leaves a central area Canada’s human rights in limbo, and kicks a political hot potato over to the government and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which can appeal the ruling to Federal Court.
Mr. Warman’s case was supported by the CHRC, and various advocacy groups joined the case as intervenors in support of Section 13.
Mr. Hadjis rejected Mr. Warman’s complaints in all but one instance, an article called AIDS Secrets. He found that this posting contravened Section 13(1). But he also found the law itself — with its threat of penalties such as an order to cease the discrimatory messages, or pay fines up to $10,000 — violates Mr. Lemire’s Charter right to freedom of expression, and therefore refused to make any order against him.
“Since a formal declaration of invalidity [of Section 13(1)] is not a remedy available to the Tribunal, I will simply refuse to apply these provisions for the purposes of the complaint against Mr. Lemire and I will not issue any remedial order against him,” Mr. Hadjis wrote.
Looks like Kinsella picked a bad to day to quit apoplexy…
Ruling here.
“yield loudly”?
Sounds like an old girl-friend of mine…
“a number of contradictions that a good constitutional and procedural lawyer would have a party with.”
Jim, please provide an example.
Posted by: hudson duster
I don’t work pro bono. But of you are interested, scan the decision’s justifications for validating previous section 13 convictions.
The air feels a bit more jaunty today as Canandians take a small step towards Liberty again.
Alienated @ 11:41 pm. Nope.
Canadian Human Rights Commissions = a colossal waste of our money and resources. Given the illegality of their actions, the costs born by the innocent people these self appointed thought police targeted, how they even managed to become so authoritarian and have this HEAVY HAND of persecution in the first place is beyond reason.
Money better spent on our badly needed health care system instead of this farce of a government agency that’s turned fascist in it’s attempt to circumvent the already established legal system.
CHRC should all be declared illegal like organized crime.
It’s against Canadians.
It’s mandate, it seems, is solely to prove how racists we Canadians are, even if they have to lie, steal and harass Canadians to do so…providing a perfect example of what happens when fascists have absolute power and authority.
The very idea that you can be hauled before a court (kangaroo or otherwise) merely for saying something that someone somewhere thinks is “likely to expose an identifiable group to hatred or contempt” is absolutely repulsive to anyone who has the slightest respect for justice and for free speech, and indeed for human life.
For starters, this kind of social engineering treats both the target of the “hate speech” and the speaker like children (which ironically is contemptuousness itself).
Second, the notion of “identifiable group” is vague. We’ve seen the Supreme Court “read in” gays, in the Vriend case. Who’s to say someone won’t try to get them to read in socialists and communists? That would mean the end of political dissent. It’s irrational to hate other races, and gays too, but socialists deserve all the hatred and contempt we can muster, because they’re evil. The ultimate goal of such legislation is to crush dissent against social engineering and the left-wing agenda.
The Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms has a clause saying it’s a violation of “human rights” to discriminate against someone on the basis of their political opinion. This is a disgrace. We have the right to discriminate against evil people.
Here’s a reminder that the judges in 1990 who killed freedom of speech in Canada were Brian Dickson, Bertha Wilson, Claire L’Heureux-Dube and Charles Gonthier.
The dissenters were Beverley McLachlin, Gerard La Forest and John Sopinka.
It seemed to me that the overall attitude of many of these various human right commissions, were that the more those indicted were frightened and cowed, the more bolder and nasty they got.
When people started to fight back, they got defensive and in one case, seemingly hurt. The classical attitude of bullies.