{"id":42165,"date":"2015-02-13T18:50:34","date_gmt":"2015-02-13T10:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=42165"},"modified":"2015-02-13T18:50:34","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T10:50:34","slug":"harper-says-government-will-appeal-ruling-allowing-veil-during-citizenship-oath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/13\/harper-says-government-will-appeal-ruling-allowing-veil-during-citizenship-oath\/","title":{"rendered":"Harper says government will appeal ruling allowing veil during citizenship oath"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\">\n<div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:68.350168% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/458616416?et=v3syDi0uRElJXyF7aF_miA&#038;sig=2o1SD2uH1_MUljOrnYk63Xf3gHDpvARXA6UD04-SrXM=&#038;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"406\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin:0;\">\n<div style=\"padding:0;margin:0 0 0 10px;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/458616416\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">View image<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\">gettyimages.com<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the government will appeal a Federal Court ruling that would allow someone to take the oath of citizenship with their faces covered.<\/p>\n<p>A federal judge ruled in Ottawa last week that a portion of the law requiring citizenship candidates to remove their face coverings while taking the oath was unlawful.<\/p>\n<p>The case had been brought on by Zunera Ishaq, a Pakistani national who had sued the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration claiming the government&#8217;s policy on veils violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.<\/p>\n<p>Ishaq, a Sunni Muslim from the Toronto-area who wears a niqab when in public, wants to be allowed to take the oath of citizenship while veiled.<\/p>\n<p>Niqabs are face coverings worn by some Muslim women in public areas and in front of adult males who are not relatives.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at an event in Quebec on Thursday, Harper said the government intends to appeal the ruling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I believe, and I think most Canadians believe that it is offensive that someone would hide their identity at the very moment where they are committing to join the Canadian family,&#8221; he said in Victoriaville, Que. &#8220;This is a society that is transparent, open, and where people are equal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the court documents, Ishaq came to Canada in 2008 and passed her citizenship test at the end of 2013. She did not attend her swearing-in ceremony after learning that she would have to remove her niqab in public for the oath-taking. Instead, she wrote a letter asking that her ceremony be postponed, and filed an application for a review of the policy with the Federal Court in Jan. 2014.<\/p>\n<p>In the decision dated Jan. 6, Federal Court Judge Keith M. Boswell ruled in Ishaq&#8217;s favour, describing the policy requiring that candidates remove face-coverings or be observed taking the oath as &#8220;unlawful.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To the extent that the Policy interferes with a citizenship judge&#8217;s duty to allow candidates for citizenship the greatest possible freedom in the solemnization or the solemn affirmation of the oath, it is unlawful,&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Ishaq&#8217;s lawyer, Lorne Waldman, said he welcomes an appeal from the government.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In my view the decision of the federal court judge was clear and unassailable,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be very curious to see what grounds of appeal they raise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>With files from Colin Perkel in Toronto<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>View image | gettyimages.com Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the government will appeal a Federal Court ruling that would allow &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":42291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-immigration","mauthors-morgan-lowrie","mauthors-the-canadian-press1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}