Ontario Court rejects the right to wear niqab
- Thread starter Mowich
- Start date
Obviously CIs aren't modest enough to show up. God forbid they humble themselves and lay off sucking the glass cock long enough to show up at court and face the people they were paid to set up or rat out.
Nonsense. The whole idea of trial by jury is for the jurors to make up their minds based on all the facts and impressions they gather. If there are flaws in that, they are flaws in human nature and flaws of perception, and they must be allowed to have full scope and "average out".
Otherwise it could be feasible to decide the outcome of a trial based on transcripts. That's not what we want.
Ask the courts
Supreme Court of Canada - Decisions
Supreme Court of Canada - Decisions
Protection of police informants ‘goes too far’: Supreme Court | News | National Post
A former police officer hired by an accused drug trafficker to identify a confidential police informant has been ordered back to court on extortion and obstruction of justice charges even though, at the same time, the Supreme Court of Canada declared an accused can try to ferret out who finked on them.
The decision, released Wednesday, weakens promises police offer informants that their identity will never be revealed.
“The notion that the defence can’t identify an informer has been put to rest. We are entitled to find out, as long as we do it legally,” said Hersh Wolch, the Calgary lawyer who argued the case.
Supreme Court chides Quebec police for not clarifying informant's status - Winnipeg Free Press
OTTAWA - The Supreme Court of Canada has chided Quebec's provincial police for leaving a witness to the bloody biker wars in limbo over his or her status as a confidential informant.
But the high court was split in its ruling Friday over whether or not the individual was indeed a police informant — and thus entitled to have his or her identity protected.
The justices opted to send the matter back to a lower court for reconsideration.
The case involves someone identified only as B who bore witness to — and participated in — violent crimes as part of a savage turf war between Quebec's biker gangs that broke out in the mid-1990s.
"Motivated by fear for his safety and a desire for vengeance," B met two officers from an unnamed police force to given them information, the ruling says
How charming! The concept of "twelve good men and true." And nowadays we even let the girls play!
Of course "the whole idea of trial by jury" has nothing to do with "all the facts and impressions they gather." The rules of evidence have evolved specifically to eliminate the presentation of facts and impressions that are more prejudicial than probative, such as hearsay rules, evidence of prior bad acts, evidence deemed irrelevant to the specific question (though arguably probative as to the character and inclinations of the accused), and non-expert opinion.
Nope, "put it all out there and let good folk decide" is centuries out of date, and more appropriate to the films than to a real courtroom.
"Her modesty"?
It's not as if she is asked to bare her bottom. We assume this woman has the requisit number of eyes, ears, nose, lips,etc,
and taking off her bloody mask is not going to shock anyone.
When I was in school was when I first started to notice people's differing views of modesty, and all throughout my life I keep finding more and more examples of how widely different the issue can be.
One example is the young cree boy who hid in the bathroom. The school had to call his mom to come, go into the bathroom, rebraid one side of his hair that had fallen out on the playground, and then he came back out and resumed his day. His belief was firmly that no one but his family should see his hair unbraided.
Another was the Baptist congregation in our town, in which a devout collection of families encouraged their daughters to keep their hair tied back in buns in public. No bangs, a simple bun, because anything else was immodest. And that's not even getting into the Hutterites and the Mennonites, who have even stricter convictions about their hair and modesty.
We all know they have hair. No one's going to be shocked to see their hair. And yet, all these funny ideas of modesty and privacy are wrapped up in North American and European cultural pockets.
Well that's one way of looking at it, but it's a cynical view that I don't share.
Solution to what? The narrow question? Let her wear the niqab if she wants to.
Fixing the law? The law fixes itself. Slowly, painfully, but inevitably.
Then the law has addressed this - she must bare her face- now as I mentioned in another thread months back, when the case was first appealed to the SCoC - That is where it is headed again.
And I have little doubt that the majority white, majority Christian, majority British Canadian court will find she has to remove the niqab. Maybe she will, maybe she'll refuse to testify.
Rather hasty slam on white folks. Racism comes in all the colors of humanity.
Supreme Court Rules on Niqab in Courtroom « Canadian Civil Liberties Association
A majority of the Supreme Court has agreed that the religious rights of the complainant must be reconciled with the accused’s right to a fair trial. The decision provides a number of considerations that will be relevant to determining how this reconciliation can be achieved on a case-by-case basis, including the nature of the evidence the witness is expected to give and how crucial it is to the case. While we are pleased that the majority of the Court recognized the importance of reconciling rights, it remains to be seen how the decision will be applied in practice. It is likely that there will be very few cases where this issue will arise, but we are concerned that, when it does, individuals may be forced to choose between accessing the justice system and staying true to their religious convictions.
The dissenting reasons of Justice Abella provide greater protection for freedom of religion, recognizing that while it is easier to assess demeanour if a witness’ face is not covered, there are many other indicators of demeanour that are not affected by the niqab. Absent a case where a witness’ face is at issue in the case (for example, when there is a question of identity), Justice Abella would not require a witness to remove her niqab in order to testify.
The full decision.
http://scc.lexum.org/decisia-scc-cs...tem/12779/index.do?r=AAAAAQAFbmlxYWIAAAAAAAAB
And in this case, the power group is white, Christian, and culturally British.
Thank you for the link. I'm pleased with this movement on the part of the court.
If you have followed our SCoC you would see that for the past 15 years or longer they have been rewiring many laws- very activist.
As to the color of the Judges- That will change as demographics within the legal profession changes.
Oh yes- 3 of the 9 Judges must come from Quebec- French province.
Didn't see what the big deal was here. I generally think wearing a niqab should be discouraged as cultures that tend to impose the niqab/burqa also tend to treat their women as chattel, which we don't really find acceptable anymore in our culture. But in this case, given that there is no doubt that a Muslim woman used to wearing a niqab would consider removing it immodest, and given the nature of the charges, I wouldn't have had a problem with her leaving it on.
On the other hand, she seems more focused on the religious freedom issue than on the allegations against the defendants, so I lose a lot of sympathy for her.
On the other hand, she seems more focused on the religious freedom issue than on the allegations against the defendants, so I lose a lot of sympathy for her.
Since this has the appearance of a swipe, and since you appear to be either native American or sympathetic to their causes, I would just point out that there is nothing superior to the justice dispensed by courts based on the British heritage.
I personally disagree that a niqab should be allowed in court, but I would respect the ruling of the court.