Bill 78 contravenes charter: expert
Criticisms come from wide array of groups, including Quebec Bar Association
MONTREAL — A constitutional expert predicts several sections of Bill 78, Quebec’s new law restricting protests, will be struck down by the courts and says lawyers representing student associations that plan to contest the legislation as early as this week will have a field day.
“There’s no doubt that this contravenes the charter on all kinds of grounds,” Montreal constitutional lawyer Julius Grey said. He cited the freedom of expression and of association as being among the fundamental freedoms violated by sections of the law.
The Quebec government passed the bill as emergency legislation last week after months of student protests against the government’s plan to hike university tuition fees.
“You could set that law as an exam question in a university and say: ‘ Discuss all the ways it could be contested’, and you could probably write for two hours on it,” Grey said.
Tuesday marked the 100th day of the students’ fight against the tuition fee hikes. As students marched in Montreal, Premier Jean Charest and Public Security Minister Robert Dutil tried to defend Bill 78 in Quebec City.
The law requires the police to be given a precise itinerary and eight hours’ notice for any protest involving 50 people or more.
Charest called it “a just law” given mounting violence by protesters at what have become nightly demonstrations.
Still, attacks against Bill 78 are coming from an array of groups, including the Quebec Bar Association and the Quebec human rights commission, which has said it’s prepared to investigate “all cases of discrimination” arising from the application of the law.
“Any application of that law will be subject to a contestation that could wind up in the Supreme Court,” Grey said.
The eight hours’ notice provision of Bill 78 “makes it impossible to demonstrate spontaneously,” Grey said.
As well, Section 9 of the law gives the education minister the power to unilaterally modify the law. Grey called that a delegation of power to legislate in the place of the government and “flagrantly unconstitutional.”
Section 10 orders university and college employees to show up for work on a given day and Section 12 explicitly prohibits a union from participating in a concerted action, both of which Grey called a violation of rights and cuts off their right to freely associate.
Grey also called sections 18 to 20, which call for cutting off of funding and fees to student associations considered to be in violation of the law, an effective dissolution of the association.
He said the measures sound like those of Maurice Duplessis, the premier who ruled over Quebec in the period know as the great darkness.
“Duplessis tried dissolving unions that went on strike, and that was struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada even before the Charter [ existed],” Grey said.