After an Alberta judge granted a Temporary mandate Blocking a provincial law that would prohibit doctors from providing attention to young people who affirm the genre, Prime Minister Danielle Smith said she intends to fight against the decision in court.
“The court had said that they think there will be irreparable damage if the law continues. I feel otherwise,” Smith said in his weekend radio program, Your province, your prime ministerOn Saturday, a day after Judge Allison Kuntz, of the Alberta King Court Bank, issued a written sentence on Bill 26.
“We want to fight this, and the way you do is that you go to the highest levels of the court. If we had to impose the clause despite, everything would stop. In fact, we think we have a very solid case.”
Eric Adams, a professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Alberta, said that although he does not believe that the court order is necessarily a clear sign that a constitutional case could be won, it does mean that lawyers will present strong and credible arguments against legislation.
“This is not a final resolution of constitutional problems, far from that,” said Adams.
“Those are … possibly even years away. But the question was: can the law operate during that period in which the legislation is being challenged? And this judge said that, in general, she chooses to maintain that law until the court despite her constitutionality.”
Bennett Jensen, legal director of the 2SLGBTQ+ Egale Canada Defense Group and the co-abogenous in the case against the province, said that the law temporarily suspended has been a “tremendous relief.”
“I think we have been containing our breath until we make this decision,” he said.
In response to the government’s decision to challenge the court order, Jensen said that “the province has been clear that he wants to act in the best interest of young people in the province … We now have a judicial decision to find evidence that their law will cause irreparable damage to young people, so I think it deserves a reconsideration.”
Despite the clause a ‘last resort’
Although the prime minister indicated that the province will challenge the court order through the judicial system at this time, he said previously that using the Despite the clause It is on the table as a “last resort.”
“Without a doubt, it is one of the tools in the tool game that the province has been preparing the public by pointing out that they were prepared to use it,” Adams said.
“The government itself cannot simply break its fingers and that the clause appears even though it appears. It must be put in the law itself.”
The provincial legislature is not scheduled to sit again until October, which means that the clause even though it could not be included in the legislation until then, as soon as possible, he said.
The clause was first used in Alberta by the progressive conservative government of Ralph Klein in 1998, then under Klein again in 2000.
“The last time Alberta considered using the clause despite the public reaction against [it] It was quite fast and took a step back, “Adams said.
But the policy about the clause despite has changed a little since then, he said, and is used in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec.
Adams said that Friday’s ruling indicates that the struggle of the province for bill 26 will not be an “easy walk in the park”, since there are serious constitutional problems that must be decided.
“We will see … if the government has to contemplate whether or not they want to get this out of the hands of the judges completely, because they do not like the direction in which this litigation is directed.”
A law that prohibits doctors from using puberty blockers and hormonal therapy in young people under 16 faces another legal challenge.
