Suchergebnisse

Abstract
Based on a small qualitative study of three religious freedom cases, this article uses litigant narratives as springboards for reflection on the theme of inclusion in the Canadian political community. The article attends to the affective dimension of inclusion, focusing on whether participants felt included or excluded. Successful litigants told narratives of Canada as a country in which they could be included in public life without forgoing their religious practices. The narratives of unsuccessful litigants were more complex. These particular litigants did not have a desire to participate in public practices and institutions. Rather, their narratives understood religious freedom on a contractual basis, portraying their loss in court as a breach of covenant. Moreover, though these narratives contained themes of rejection and exclusion, participants said that they had faith enough in their eventual success that they would stay in Canada rather than emigrate.

In Loyola High School, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, the Supreme Court of Canada held that the government of Quebec could not require a Catholic high school to teach Catholic religion and ethics from a non-Catholic perspective. The government could, however, require the school to teach other religions from a "neutral" perspective. This article takes Loyola as an opportunity to examine two ways that courts have justified limits on religious freedom. First, I interrogate an under-examined aspect of the law of religious freedom: the requirement that claimants prove the interference with their religious freedom is "more than trivial or insubstantial". Second, I examine how the majority and minority decisions articulate broader visions of religious freedom. I argue that religious freedom has been interpreted through the value of tolerance, understood in Loyola as giving rise to a state obligation to educate students in the skills of non-exclusionary dialogue.

In three religious freedom cases pursued to the Supreme Court of Canada—Amselem, Multani, and Huterrian Brethren of Wilson Colony—religious freedom claimants engaged in litigation over a religious practice particular to their group. Some have argued that cases like these can be seen as cross-cultural encounters. How did the religious freedom claimants seek to make their practices—the succah, the kirpan, and the prohibition on being photographed—understood to the courts? And how did the courts respond to these claims? In this article, I draw out two central values from the literature on crosscultural communication: respect and self-awareness. I then use these values as lenses through which to view participant narratives collected in a qualitative study of litigants, lawyers, and an expert witness. I argue that courts are more likely to achieve a fuller understanding of minority religious practices when they are faithful to the values of respect and self-awareness. This, in turn, can strengthen their proportionality analyses. Of the three cases, the Supreme Court in Multani came the closest to realizing this ideal. The majority in Wilson Colony marked a low point in this regard, failing to fully appreciate the litigants' commitment to their collectivist worldview. Amselem was something of a middle ground, where the Court deliberately preferred to engage with a thinner account of the religious practice.