The Place of the Niqab in the Courtroom
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Vrinda Narain
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, McGill University and Research Associate, International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State, South Africa.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R v NS, 2012 SCC 72 where the Court considered if a witness who wears a niqab for religious reasons can be required to remove it while testifying. The Court identified the two Charter rights engaged: the witness’ freedom of religion and the accused’s fair trial rights, including the right to make full answer and defense. This paper focuses on those aspects of the Supreme Court’s decision that relate to religious freedom, multiculturalism and reasonable accommodation. Analyzing the Court’s reasoning through the lens of critical multiculturalism, I consider the potential of the reasonable accommodation framework to forward minority rights. I suggest that had the Supreme Court applied an intersectional framework to adjudicating NS’s claim, it could have crafted a more contextual response based on her location along multiple axes of discrimination: gender, religion and racialised minority. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of mediating individual and group tensions, to move towards a more inclusive notion of citizenship than can foster a commitment to a shared multicultural future.
About the author
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law and the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, McGill University and Research Associate, International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State, South Africa.
© 2017 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Table of Contents
- Articles
- On Resilience of Constitutions. What Makes Constitutions Resistant to External Shocks?
- Foreign Precedents in Austrian Constitutional Litigation
- The Place of the Niqab in the Courtroom
- Notes & Essays
- The Most Significant Issues of Power Theory in Hungary from 2010 to 2014
- Czech Presidential Elections 2013
- Developments Austria
- Gender-specific Scoring of Admission Tests for medical Studies is consistent with the Principle of Equality
- Preferential Treatment of female Gynaecologists justified by legitimate Demand
- Austrian Court of Audit is denied Access to Federal Ministry’s e-mail Correspondence
- Developments CEE
- Croatian Constitutional Court: The Referendum on the Cyrillic Script
- Hungarian Constitutional Court: The Limits of Criticism of Public Figures
- Book Reviews
- Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre Larouche (eds), The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, Hart Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-84946-580-9, 428 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Table of Contents
- Articles
- On Resilience of Constitutions. What Makes Constitutions Resistant to External Shocks?
- Foreign Precedents in Austrian Constitutional Litigation
- The Place of the Niqab in the Courtroom
- Notes & Essays
- The Most Significant Issues of Power Theory in Hungary from 2010 to 2014
- Czech Presidential Elections 2013
- Developments Austria
- Gender-specific Scoring of Admission Tests for medical Studies is consistent with the Principle of Equality
- Preferential Treatment of female Gynaecologists justified by legitimate Demand
- Austrian Court of Audit is denied Access to Federal Ministry’s e-mail Correspondence
- Developments CEE
- Croatian Constitutional Court: The Referendum on the Cyrillic Script
- Hungarian Constitutional Court: The Limits of Criticism of Public Figures
- Book Reviews
- Maurice Adams, Federico Fabbrini and Pierre Larouche (eds), The Constitutionalization of European Budgetary Constraints, Hart Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1-84946-580-9, 428 pp.
