As the judge­ment is likely to im­pact not only Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness­es’ case but also the Sikh Gur­d­wara de­ci­sions and those of other com­mu­ni­ties, WSO pre­sented oral ar­gu­ments in the Supreme Court of Canada in the land­mark High­wood Con­gre­ga­tion ver­sus Wall case which will ad­ju­di­cate on whether courts can ju­di­cially re­view mem­ber­ship de­ci­sions taken by pri­vate re­li­gious as­so­ci­a­tions.

Ot­tawa, Canada: In a sound ex­pec­ta­tion that the judge­ment is likely to im­pact not only the pre­sent case of the Je­ho­vah’s Wit­nesses re­gard­ing who can be a mem­ber of a re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion but also the Sikh Gur­d­wara de­ci­sions and those of other com­mu­ni­ties, World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion in a proac­tive move in­ter­vened and pre­sented oral ar­gu­ments in the Supreme Court of Canada in the land­mark High­wood Con­gre­ga­tion ver­sus Wall case which will ad­ju­di­cate on whether courts can ju­di­cially re­view mem­ber­ship de­ci­sions taken by pri­vate re­li­gious as­so­ci­a­tions.

The facts of High­wood Con­gre­ga­tion ver­sus Wall re­volve around Mr. Wall who was “dis-fel­lowed” (ex­pelled) from his Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness con­gre­ga­tion due to al­le­ga­tions of drunk­en­ness and mis­be­hav­iour with his fam­ily.  Mr. Wall brought an ap­pli­ca­tion for Ju­di­cial Re­view of the Con­gre­ga­tion’s de­ci­sion al­leg­ing that the ex­pul­sion af­fected his liveli­hood as a re­al­tor since many of his clients were Je­ho­vah’s Wit­nesses who no longer gave him busi­ness.  The Court of Queen’s Bench con­cluded that the Court had ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the Ju­di­cial Re­view ap­pli­ca­tion based on Wal­l’s eco­nomic in­ter­est on whether he was af­forded due process be­fore this dis­fel­low­ship. 

The Al­berta Court of Ap­peal up­held the lower court de­ci­sion.  The Con­gre­ga­tion then ap­pealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

WSO le­gal coun­sel Bal­preet Singh pre­sented oral ar­gu­ments ar­gu­ing that the Char­ter Value of state re­li­gious neu­tral­ity con­strains the court from ju­di­cially re­view­ing the mem­ber­ship of pri­vate re­li­gious as­so­ci­a­tions. WSO ar­gued that courts should only be per­mit­ted in rare in­stances to in­ter­vene in re­li­gious prac­tices, where the Char­ter’s broader free and de­mo­c­ra­tic aims are at stake, and the court’s in­ter­ven­tion would pre­serve or pro­mote these ob­jec­tives in a mean­ing­ful way and where main­tain­ing neu­tral­ity would re­sult in ac­tual and sig­nif­i­cant harm. 

In a me­dia state­ment, WSO le­gal coun­sel Bal­preet Singh said, “while this case is with re­spect to the ex­pul­sion of a Je­ho­vah’s Wit­ness mem­ber by the el­ders in his con­gre­ga­tion, we be­lieve that the re­sult of this case could im­pact other re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties as well, in­clud­ing Sikhs.  Re­li­gious as­so­ci­a­tions must be al­lowed to choose whom to wor­ship with, with­out state in­ter­fer­ence.  In the Sikh faith, any de­ci­sion taken by the Punj Pyare are bind­ing, how­ever if Wal­l’s ar­gu­ments are suc­cess­ful, such de­ci­sions would po­ten­tially be sub­ject to re­view as well. We be­lieve it was im­por­tant for the Court to hear about this mat­ter from a Sikh per­spec­tive.”   

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Sig­nif­i­cantly, this is the fourth time WSO has rep­re­sented in the Supreme Court of Canada on be­half of a non-Sikh ap­pel­lant. Ear­lier on, WSO in­ter­vened in Syn­di­cate Northcrest verus Am­se­lem, on be­half of the Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty’s rights to re­li­gious free­dom, in 2005, WSO in­ter­vened in Mul­tani ver­sus Com­mis­sion Sco­laire Mar­guerite‑Bour­geoys with re­spect to the right of a Sikh stu­dent to wear his kir­pan at school and in 2014 WSO had in­ter­vened in Loy­ola High School, et al. ver­sus At­tor­ney Gen­eral of Que­bec re­gard­ing whether le­gal per­sons such as a or­ga­ni­za­tions, schools and in­sti­tu­tions can claim pro­tec­tion un­der the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights for free­dom of re­li­gion.