(Canadian Press) After concerns of bias raised by the Quebec government and others, a Supreme Court of Canada justice will not participate in deliberations about whether the high court will hear an appeal to the province’s secularism law, known as Bill 21.
A letter issued Tuesday by the court registrar says that while Justice Mahmud Jamal believes there is no legal basis for him to recuse himself, he has decided to withdraw to avoid “being a distraction.”
Recently, the Quebec government and other groups called on Jamal to step away from the case because he served as chairman of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s board of directors when the group challenged Bill 21 in Superior Court in 2019.
