Listen to this article
Approximately 2 minutes
The audio version of this article was created using text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
Hearings in one of the most anticipated Supreme Court of Canada cases in recent years will begin on March 23.
The country's Supreme Court has set aside five days to consider Quebec's 2019 secularism bill, which prohibits public sector workers considered to be in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols at work.
The law, known as Bill 21, is immune from many constitutional challenges because it preemptively invokes a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allows the federal or provincial legislature to temporarily remove certain rights.
One of the many parties to the case is the Canadian government, which wants the court to set limits on how provincial governments can ignore fundamental rights, using the so-called notwithstanding clause of the Charter.
Critics of Bill 21 say it violates the rights to freedom of expression and religion, but the Quebec government says the law is necessary to preserve Quebec's values ​​of secularism and equality between men and women.
The results of the Supreme Court hearings are likely to set significant precedents across the country, particularly regarding minority rights and governments' use of the notwithstanding clause.
