 
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS PUBLICATION BAN ON ELECTION RESULTS
The Supreme Court of Canada has sustained the constitutionality of a federal prohibition against publishing the election results from one region to another where the polls are still open. At the time of the last federal election, Paul Charles Bryan posted the results from the Maritimes on the Internet, before the polls in British Columbia had closed. His action precipitated a charge and conviction under the Canada Elections Act. In court, Bryan argued that the publication ban unconstitutionally restricted his freedom of speech. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Intervening in that court for CCLA, Special Counsel Mahmud Jamal and Colin Feasby (of Osler, Hoskin, & Harcourt) argued that freedom of speech must not be infringed unless there is demonstrable harm, and no such harm was shown in this case. Moreover, the two CCLA lawyers also argued that the ban was meaningless because the results would be available to all Canadians from the American media and foreign internet sources. But the Supreme Court held that the purpose of the election ban was to ensure confidence in the electoral system by promoting informational equality among voters, that this was a valid objective, and that the enactment accomplished this objective. The Director of CCLA’s Freedom of Expression Project, Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, gave numbers of media interviews on this issue. | CCLA In The Schools | Join Us | Feedback | Search | Other Interesting Sites | Home |
|