The right to confront a witness is ancient. But more, a judge's job in figuring out whether someone is truthful or not depends in large part on expression during testimony. In the end freedom of religion must be balanced against the right to a fair trial.
Woman's right to testify in veil a religious freedom?
TORONTO - The Ontario Human Rights Commission is arguing that a provincial court judge failed to recognize the religious freedoms of a Muslim woman when he ordered her to testify at a sexual assault trial without a veil known as a niqab. The government agency is asking for special permission to be allowed to intervene at a Superior Court proceeding hearing an appeal of the lower court decision because of its 45 years of "expertise" in the area of human rights.
"The commission can offer the court assistance and expertise in the area of accommodation particularly in relation to discrimination based on creed or religious belief," states an affidavit by Barbara Hall, chief commissioner of the human rights body.
The Superior Court hearing is scheduled to begin this morning in Toronto. The hearing stems from a ruling last fall by provincial court Justice Norris Weisman.
He ruled that the woman must remove the veil that covers everything but her eyes while testifying at the preliminary hearing of two men accused of sexually assaulting her.
Lawyers representing the two men argued they should be permitted to see the demeanour of the woman while she testified, as part of their right to a fair trial. The defence suggested that demeanour would help determine the credibility of the woman.
James Morton
1100 - 5255 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
M2N 6P4
1 comment:
I ten to agree but this is a tricky issue.
I think in order to get past it there's a second social issue that has to be addressed: if in order to press charges and go to trial a woman has to show her face and she feels she can't do it for religious reasons, she may never press charges.
I wonder how this can be balanced because I think this issue is here to stay until those types of details can be ironed out.
This one may be hard to move forward on and I think the religious freedom angle is one the people in the Muslim community will take seriously and if no solution can be raised this will enforce the alienation that they perceive... and yet it is clear that there has to be something done on this issue.
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