Alberta Supreme Court rules that potential lawyers are required to take an oath Pledge of Allegiance ruling monarch is unconstitutional and infringes on freedom of religion.
The Alberta Court of Appeal on Tuesday handed down its decision in the long-running case of Prabjot Virring v. the province and the Law Society of Alberta.
The court said the legally required oath forced Virring to choose between practicing law in Alberta and his Amritdhari Sikh faith.
The decision hinged on whether the judge had previously erred in considering whether the Law Society's requirement to take Canada's official oath of “true allegiance” to the reigning monarch and their heirs and successors violated the Charter right to religious freedom.
The court said Virring swore allegiance to the Akal Purah, or the Creator in the Sikh faith, and could not swear allegiance or allegiance to any other figure or organization, including taking an oath of allegiance to become a lawyer.
Virring challenged the oath in June 2022.
More than a year after hearing arguments, in October 2024 a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal declared the oath requirement unconstitutional and unenforceable, meaning it is no longer required in Alberta.
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“This case highlights the real possibility that candidates with religious objections to the Oath of Allegiance may choose not to become members of the Alberta Bar, thereby reducing the representativeness of the Bar,” the decision said.
The Alberta government has 60 days to ask the Supreme Court of Canada to hear the case and challenge the appeal court's decision.
Heather Jenkins, a spokeswoman for Alberta's justice minister, said in a statement that the government is reviewing the decision and will not comment because it is still before the court.
The ruling does not affect the other two oaths required for entry into the law society, neither of which use the term “loyalty.”
The Court of Appeal found that the previous judge had erred in ruling that Wirring could take the oath because it was allegiance to the abstract ideal of the rule of law rather than to an entity such as the Queen. (Elizabeth was the reigning monarch at the time).
However, the appellate court ruled that Virring could not swear allegiance to anything other than the Akal Purakh.
Virring eventually became a member of the Law Society of Alberta in 2023 when he transferred from Saskatchewan as part of a new interprovincial licensing process introduced months after he challenged the Oath of Allegiance.
Essentially, this decision did not affect his ability to practice law, and he is now actively practicing law.
However, the court said it believed it was appropriate to settle the matter as a matter of public importance because those who are not members of the law society, including undergraduate students, may not have the money to challenge the Charter in court.
“In my case, there is a very narrowly defined, specific religious reason why I was unable to take the Pledge of Allegiance. But I know that many other people have a lot of good ethical reasons why they too were hesitant or had problems with the Pledge of Allegiance,” Virring said in an interview.
He said he has heard from Sikh lawyers, Indigenous students and other racialized people about their negative experiences taking the oath.
The Court of Appeal believes that Alberta could solve this problem by making the oath optional, as is the case in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Yukon and Ontario; remove this requirement, as has been done in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan; or revise the wording of the oath.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
