Jump to content

Canada Supreme Court To Rule


Khalsa4ever
 Share

Recommended Posts

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

Supreme Court hones ruling on Sikh ceremonial daggers

JIM BROWN

OTTAWA (CP) - A long-running case that pits religious freedom against public safety is about to come to a head at the Supreme Court of Canada.

The court, in a judgment likely to resonate across the country, is set to rule Thursday on whether a Montreal school board was justified in barring a Sikh student from carrying a ceremonial dagger to class. The issue has been argued before, at local and provincial levels, but the top court has never offered an opinion on the matter.

"Most of the time we've been able to negotiate out-of-court agreements," said Anne Lowthian, executive director of the Canadian branch of the World Sikh Organization.

"In this particular case that didn't happen."

The Montreal dispute centres on Gurbaj Singh Multani, who first wore the dagger, known as a kirpan, to class at age 12 in 2001.

School officials initially tried to work out a compromise that would allow him to continue wearing the kirpan - a religious requirement for orthodox Sikh males - but impose some restrictions for the sake of safety.

The governing council of the Margueriite-Bourgeoys school board overruled that approach and imposed a total ban. In their view, the kirpan violated a student conduct code that prohibited the carrying of "weapons and dangerous objects."

During a Supreme Court hearing last April, Julius Grey, the lawyer for the Multani family, noted that schools in other provinces have allowed the wearing of kirpans - and there has never been a case in which one was used to stab a student.

That adds up to "overwhelming empirical evidence that the kirpan is not a dangerous weapon," said Grey.

Francois Aquin, the lawyer for the Montreal board, retorted that there have never been any school assaults with kitchen knives either: "That doesn't mean we will allow students to carry kitchen knives in school."

The case made its way to the high court after conflicting decisions at the provincial level.

A Quebec Superior Court judge ruled in Gurbaj Singh's favour in 2002, saying he could carry the kirpan as long as he met certain conditions - for example, keeping the dagger sheathed and sewn into a cloth envelope to be worn out of sight beneath his clothing.

The Quebec Court of Appeal reversed that decision in 2004, ruling that the school board had the power to impose a total ban.

The issue before the Supreme Court is whether that ban violates the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and amounts to unwarranted discrimination against orthodox Sikhs, who make up about 10 per cent of the estimated 250,000 Sikhs in Canada.

The provincial appeal court acknowledged the school board's policy infringed on religious freedom. But it said the infringement was justified by the overriding need to ensure safety in public schools.

Other jurisdictions, including school districts in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario, have solved the problem with compromises of the kind that failed in Montreal.

They permit kirpans but impose various restrictions - most often a limit on their size or a requirement that they be worn out of sight.

The different precedents have produced a patchwork of policies across the country - something that's true not only in schools but in other public institutions.

It's all right, for example, for Sikh MPs to wear kirpans in the House of Commons and for visitors to wear them in the public galleries.

It's also all right to wear kirpans in the Supreme Court of Canada. But trial judges in some provinces have banned them from their courtrooms.

Most airlines once routinely allowed passengers to wear kirpans with blades no longer than 10 centimetres. In the security crackdown that followed the 9-11 terrorist attacks, however, Transport Canada imposed a total ban on all "knives or knife-like objects," including religious ones.

Thursday's ruling will focus specifically on the school environment. It's possible, though not certain, that the legal principles could have repercussions in other areas.

vwihgurU jI kw Kwlsw!

vwihgurU jI kI &iqh!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt
  • advertisement_alt


  • Topics

  • Posts

    • yeh it's true, we shouldn't be lazy and need to learn jhatka shikaar. It doesn't help some of grew up in surrounding areas like Slough and Southall where everyone thought it was super bad for amrit dharis to eat meat, and they were following Sant babas and jathas, and instead the Singhs should have been normalising jhatka just like the recent world war soldiers did. We are trying to rectifiy this and khalsa should learn jhatka.  But I am just writing about bhog for those that are still learning rehit. As I explained, there are all these negative influences in the panth that talk against rehit, but this shouldn't deter us from taking khanda pahul, no matter what level of rehit we are!
    • How is it going to help? The link is of a Sikh hunter. Fine, but what good does that do the lazy Sikh who ate khulla maas in a restaurant? By the way, for the OP, yes, it's against rehit to eat khulla maas.
    • Yeah, Sikhs should do bhog of food they eat. But the point of bhog is to only do bhog of food which is fit to be presented to Maharaj. It's not maryada to do bhog of khulla maas and pretend it's OK to eat. It's not. Come on, bro, you should know better than to bring this Sakhi into it. Is this Sikh in the restaurant accompanied by Guru Gobind Singh ji? Is he fighting a dharam yudh? Or is he merely filling his belly with the nearest restaurant?  Please don't make a mockery of our puratan Singhs' sacrifices by comparing them to lazy Sikhs who eat khulla maas.
    • Seriously?? The Dhadi is trying to be cute. For those who didn't get it, he said: "Some say Maharaj killed bakras (goats). Some say he cut the heads of the Panj Piyaras. The truth is that they weren't goats. It was she-goats (ਬਕਰੀਆਂ). He jhatka'd she-goats. Not he-goats." Wow. This is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever heard in relation to Sikhi.
    • Instead of a 9 inch or larger kirpan, take a smaller kirpan and put it (without gatra) inside your smaller turban and tie the turban tightly. This keeps a kirpan on your person without interfering with the massage or alarming the masseuse. I'm not talking about a trinket but rather an actual small kirpan that fits in a sheath (you'll have to search to find one). As for ahem, "problems", you could get a male masseuse. I don't know where you are, but in most places there are professional masseuses who actually know what they are doing and can really relieve your muscle pains.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Terms of Use