Prominent civil liberties groups have been denied intervenor status in the high-profile case of a woman challenging the government’s ban on wearing the niqab during citizenship ceremonies.
In a ruling last month, a Federal Court of Appeal judge dismissed the applications of six groups—including the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Canadian Civil Liberties Association and National Council of Canadian Muslims—wishing to intervene in the case of Zunera Ishaq.
Of the six applicants, “none has persuaded me that it will advance different and valuable insights and perspectives that will actually further the Court’s determination of the matter,” Justice David Stratas wrote in his decision.
Ishaq, a Mississauga woman who became a permanent resident in 2008, launched a legal challenge of the federal government’s ban on niqabs during citizenship ceremonies, claiming it violated her Charter rights.
In a February ruling, the Federal Court sided with her, finding that the policy was unlawful.
“To the extent that the policy interferes with a citizenship judge’s duty to allow candidates for citizenship the greatest possible freedom in the religious solemnization or the solemn affirmation of the oath it is unlawful,” Justice Keith M. Boswell wrote in his ruling.
The federal government appealed the ruling. But the court of appeal’s new ruling on the intervenors means the hearing won’t include some of the country’s leading civil liberties groups.
Organizations such as the CCLA routinely intervene on civil liberties cases. But Stratas called the submissions “unspecific and unparticularized.”
“No one has concretely and specifically identified a task ... on which the Court will need assistance and on which the applicants can help,” he wrote. “All of the applicants’ submissions are too general and diffuse to be persuasive.”
Last month, in an apparent response to the Federal Court ruling, the Conservatives introduced new legislation requiring citizenship applicants to show their face while taking the oath of citizenship.
With Parliament having risen for the summer and an election coming in the fall, the bill has virtually no chance of becoming law.