Ontario high court rules witnesses may wear niqab unless unfair to accused News
Ontario high court rules witnesses may wear niqab unless unfair to accused
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[JURIST] The Court of Appeal for Ontario [official website] ruled [judgment, PDF] Wednesday that a witness does not have to remove her niqab [JURIST news archive] unless the failure to do so will prevent the accused from receiving a fair trial. The court stopped short [CBC report] of issuing a ruling that would require all courts to follow in a similar fashion. The decision emphasizes the need for each situation to be considered on a case by case basis. The court wrote:

If, in the specific circumstances, the accused’s fair trial right can be honoured only by requiring the witness to remove the niqab, the niqab must be removed if the witness is to testify. I would hope, however, that if the individual rights recognized in the Charter are treated as something more than additional weapons in the lawyer’s legal arsenal, the parties will engage in good faith efforts to reconcile competing interests and produce a satisfactory resolution that recognizes and respects both the accused’s right to a fair trial and the witness’s right to exercise her religious beliefs. I repeat, each case must turn on its own facts. The full facts of this case, as they relate to this issue, are not known.

The lower court in this case required the victim to remove her veil. However, the court of appeal found that the lower court did not conduct a proper inquiry into the woman’s religious rights. The victim has accused her cousin and uncle of repeatedly sexually abusing her between the ages of 6 and 10.

The issue surrounding Muslim women and their traditional clothing remains controversial in Canada and around the world. Last week, the French Constitutional Council [official website, in French] ruled [JURIST report] that a bill [materials, in French] making it illegal to wear the Islamic burqa, niqab or other full face veils in public, conforms with the Constitution. Earlier this month, a Dutch politician suggested that the Netherlands will ban the burqa [JURIST report] as part of the government’s plan to form a minority coalition. In August, Austria’s conservative Freedom Party [official website, in German] called for a special vote [JURIST report] on whether to ban face veils and the construction of minarets, two of the most visible symbols of the Islamic faith. Many members of the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) [advocacy website] believe [JURIST comment] that Canada should consider banning the wearing conservative Muslim clothing.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail

On April 16, 1963, an incarcerated Martin Luther King, Jr. (arrested for demonstrating in defiance of a court order) wrote his Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama.

Part of the letter read: We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we stiff creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dark of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. Read the full text of the Letter.

Former communist countries admitted for EU accession

On April 16, 2003, the 2003 Treaty of Accession was signed by 10 countries, admitting them for European Union (EU) ascension. After Malta and Cyprus, eight of the ten new EU nations (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) were former communist countries. The signing of the treaty in Athens marked the first time that former members of the Soviet Bloc joined the EU.

Learn more about EU expansion from the organization's website.

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