{"id":13757,"date":"2013-12-20T11:16:45","date_gmt":"2013-12-20T16:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=13757"},"modified":"2013-12-20T11:16:45","modified_gmt":"2013-12-20T16:16:45","slug":"canadas-supreme-court-strikes-down-prostitution-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/12\/20\/canadas-supreme-court-strikes-down-prostitution-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s Supreme Court strikes down prostitution laws"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A rally to support sex worker rights at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa last year. Photo: Jenn Farr<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

In a landmark decision this morning, Canada’s highest court unanimously struck down many existing laws that criminalized prostitution. As reported by the CBC<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In striking down laws prohibiting brothels, living on the avails\u00a0of prostitution and communicating in public with clients, the top court\u00a0ruled Friday that the laws were over-broad and grossly disproportionate.<\/p>\n

The ruling was in response to a court challenge by women with experience in the sex trade\u00a0\u00a0Terri Jean Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott.<\/p>\n

The top court\u00a0agreed with an Ontario court ruling that overturned the laws.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A .pdf of the high court’s ruling can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the Canadian Press<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The court struck down all three prostitution-related prohibitions \u2014 against keeping a brothel, living on the avails of prostitution and street soliciting \u2014 as violations of the constitutional guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person.<\/p>\n

The ruling comes more than two decades after the court last upheld the anti-prostitution laws. It represents a historic victory for sex workers \u2014 mainly women \u2014 who were seeking safer working conditions.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing on behalf of the court, said Canada’s social landscape has changed since 1990.<\/p>\n

“These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not,” she wrote. “They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster.<\/p>\n

“I conclude that they do not.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The CP report says existing laws concerning prostitution will remain in effect for one year (until Dec. 19, 2014) during which time Parliament may write new legislation in regards to prostitution that would better meet the court’s objections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a landmark decision this morning, Canada’s highest court unanimously struck down many existing laws […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[880,6506,13529,13530,11683],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13757"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13765,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13757\/revisions\/13765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}