EMSB loses bid to temporarily suspend Quebec’s religious symbols law

The school board had asked the court to temporarily suspend the application of Bill 21 while the province appeals an earlier ruling.

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The English Montreal School has lost a court offer to suspend the application of Bill 21 while it is challenged in court.

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The school board won a court ruling in April, granting it an exemption from many of the provisions of Bill 21, which prohibits teachers from wearing hijabs and other religious clothing while teaching. However, under Quebec law, the board must comply with the law even though it won the waiver in court, because that decision is being appealed by the province.

The school board filed an application with the Quebec Court of Appeals last month asking to be temporarily exempted from the provisions of Bill 21 pending the results of that appeal.

The lower court ruling found that the law violated the constitutionally protected right of the English-speaking minority to manage and control their institutions.

In a statement posted on its website, EMSB noted that the appeal process could take up to a year, and in the meantime, “EMSB and other English-language school boards are still unable to hire principals, assistant principals, and teachers who wear religious symbols. “.

In a reaction in Quebec City, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette called the ruling “a victory for the secularism of the state, a value that we will defend to the end.”

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Bill 21 prohibits provincial officials in positions of authority, a category the Legault government has decided includes teachers in public schools, from wearing religious symbols at work. While the law allows an exemption for those public officials who wore religious symbols and were employees of the province prior to the adoption of Bill 21, those same employees cannot be promoted or transferred in the future unless they remove those symbols while they are at work.

In a ruling published Tuesday, Judge Frédéric Bachand ruled that he did not believe that EMSB would be seriously and irrevocably disadvantaged in its hiring practices or that the law was a suppression of minority culture.

Bachand rejected EMSB’s offer and the board will have to adhere to the province’s secularism law while last April’s ruling is challenged in court.