The union will try to convince the court to better regulate the use of the “derogation clause”.
Chaired by Mélanie Hubert, the FAE intends to add its voice to the challenges to “Law 21” before the Supreme Court, in particular to better regulate the use of the derogation provision of the Constitution. (Archive photo)
Photo: Radio-United States / Sylvain Roy Roussel
After the English Montreal School Board, it is the turn of the Autonomous Education Federation (FAE) to announce that it has filed a petition with the Supreme Court of Canada to challenge the Education Secularism Act. State.
In a press release published Monday, the FAE indicated that she is particularly opposed to the use of the notwithstanding clause, which allowed the Quebec government to adopt the law without it being able to be challenged under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
In February, the minister responsible for Secularism, Jean-François Roberge, tabled a bill aimed at renewing for another period of five years the derogatory provision which had been inserted into the law in 2019 to exempt it from the attacks based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in particular those claiming that it is discriminatory.
According to FAEwe must be wary of the ease with which parliaments suspend our fundamental rights by excessive use of derogation clauses
.
She believes that for a use of the notwithstanding clause to be valid, the Parliament which uses it should have to demonstrate that the objective is real and urgent
and that a citizen requests it.
The group of teachers’ unions therefore wants the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, to look into the verdict rendered this winter by the Court of Appeal, which validated Law 21, affirming that the law does not violate the linguistic rights of English-speaking school boards.
