Nova Scotia lawyers drop court battle against Christian law school
A Nova Scotia legal association halted its efforts to
bar in advance any graduates of the law school proposed by British Columbia’s
Christian and private Trinity Western University just three weeks after its ban
was overruled by the province’s appeals court.
Trinity Western spokesperson Amy Robertson told
LifeSiteNews, “We’re pleased that the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society is going
to honour the court’s decision.”
Referring to the Nova Scotia lower court ruling in
TWU’s favour, she added, “As Justice [Jamie] Campbell affirmed, the freedom to
believe in God — or not — and practice accordingly, is a vital right not just
for faith communities but all Canadians. This is an important step in
maintaining that freedom.”
Trinity Western’s prospective law grads were approved
by five provincial law societies and the national federation of law societies
but disapproved in advance in British Columbia, Ontario, and Nova Scotia.
The three dissenters found nothing wrong with the
academic standards for the prospective school. Their objection was that
TWU required all students and faculty to agree to a community covenant that
committed them to live according to Christian moral teachings, including a
prohibition on sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, which the law
groups deemed discriminatory to homosexuals.
The Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society released a
statement on Monday acknowledging that it would not challenge the decision by
the appeals court, which affirmed the Nova Scotia lower court finding that it
was beyond the society’s powers to try to regulate a British Columbia law
school and a violation of the religious rights of both TWU students and the
school itself.
The Nova Scotia law society said, “With the benefit of
advice from legal counsel, the executive committee of council accepted the
executive director’s recommendation to take the matter no further.” Because the
internal bylaw justifying the ban was found to be “ultra vires,” or beyond its
jurisdiction, the statement continued, the society’s ruling council will now
consider amending “that regulation to comply with the Court’s decision.”
In Ontario, the outcome so far has favoured the the
provincial law society, which has successfully defended its ban in the lower
court and at the appeals level. In British Columbia, a lower court has
overturned the law society’s ban and the result of the appeal trial is pending.
Whoever loses, the society or TWU, is expected to appeal to the Supreme Court
of Canada, as TWU has indicated it will do with the Ontario decision.
The three law societies objecting to TWU’s community
covenant presented no evidence of discriminatory behaviour by graduates or by
staff, faculty, or students on campus, beyond the community covenant itself.
Virtually all of Canada’s older universities began
with strong affiliations to a Christian denomination, but few maintain more
than cursory ties today. Founded by members of the Evangelical Free Church, the
59-year-old TWU has 3,600 students and 26,000 alumni in 80 countries.
