Quebec tries to muzzle the Supreme Court of Canada

Quebec is calling for a Supreme Court of Canada judge to recuse himself from an appeal case on the province's proposed secularism law, Bill 21.

Well, that might not seem like big news to you. But Quebec's argument is that Justice Mahmud Jamal is not impartial to the case because he was chairman of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) when the group first challenged the law in Quebec's Superior Court back in 2019.

What the province of Quebec is actually saying is that it doesn't want Justice Jamal to vote on the case because it knows which way he will vote (and they don't like it). This would be like asking the Conservative members of the US Supreme Court not to vote on an abortion case, like the one they recently embarrassed their country with, because everyone knows which way they will vote.

Thus far, the Supreme Court of Canada is saying that there is no reason for Justice Jamal, who is no longer associated with CCLA, to recuse himself. They need to hold that line.