CJC weighs in on the Lemire decision

With regard to this, the Canadian Jewish Congress says Lemire case decision wrong in law:

Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) said today it believes the decision in the case of Warman v. Lemire is wrong in law and should be appealed. CJC also noted it believes section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) remains constitutional.

The case involves a complaint filed against Marc Lemire, webmaster of freedomsite.org, by Ottawa lawyer Richard Warman, for a number of alleged antisemitic postings on Lemire's web site.

"We are pleased that Canadian Human Rights Tribunal Member Athanasios Hadjis found that some of the material posted by Lemire violated s. 13 of the CHRA. However, we strongly disagree with his decision not to impose a cease and desist order because he believed the penalty provisions in the Act render s. 13 unconstitutional," said Joel Richler, CJC National Honourary Legal Counsel.

"Reasonable people can differ regarding the penalty provisions of the Act - that is a matter for the Federal Court of Canada to determine," said Richler.

"The Supreme Court of Canada clearly ruled that s. 13 was constitutional long before the penalty provisions were added to it. As such, Mr. Hadjis should have simply ignored the penalty provisions and applied the appropriate cease and desist order against Mr. Lemire," he added.

CHRT decision on Lemire

Interesting news yesterday. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in a case about Marc Lemire and his site, freedomsite.org. Lemire has more or less been acquited: what he wrote himself was (apart from one post) not sufficiently hate-inducing to be penalized. Also, the CHRT finds that the section of the act covering penalties was unconstitutional, which surprises me. More later.