KIRK MAKIN / Globe and Mail / Friday, July 3rd, 2009
JUSTICE REPORTER
An Ontario judge has turned down a request from two religious groups and a conservative women’s group to take part in a constitutional challenge of the country’s prostitution laws.
Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of the Ontario Superior Court said that the groups would be liable to turn the trial into a soapbox for spiritual views, which would be out of place in a strictly legal proceeding.
Judge Matlow said that the groups struck him as being unaware that the challenge “does not provide a political platform where interested persons are permitted to speak in order to advance their personal views, beliefs, policies and interests at large.”
The ruling came as a blow to the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada and Catholic Civil Rights League – which had argued that the court should hear a broad range of voices on a question with important moral dimensions.
Scheduled to begin this fall, the challenge was launched by three activists connected to the sex trade – Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott. They want the court to strike down laws against communicating for the purposes of prostitution, living off the avails of prostitution and keeping a common bawdy house.
The challenge will focus on whether prostitution laws violate a constitutional guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person by exposing sex workers to danger.
Judge Matlow said yesterday that he was reluctant to convey an erroneous impression that the groups have a “special relationship” with the court that permits them to present contentious moral opinions that “would reflect the views of only small segments of Canadian society.”
He also said that their participation could disrupt and prolong the hearing.
Alan Young, a lawyer for the challengers, argued before Judge Matlow that the Supreme Court of Canada heard a Charter challenge to the prostitution laws in 1990 that raised quite different legal points. He said that while the court upheld the provisions, it made it clear that morality is not a factor in such challenges.