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Supreme Court strikes down Canada's prostitution laws
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the country’s major prostitution laws, saying that bans on street soliciting, brothels and people living off the avails of prostitution are arbitrary and create severe dangers for vulnerable women.
The ruling is one of the most significant since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982 and will alter a longstanding feature of the Canadian legal landscape, much like previous Charter rulings on gay marriage on abortion did. Laws against brothels and pimps go back to pre-Confederation days.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court — with a majority of judges appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper — insisted the government not put vulnerable people at severe risk. That is much the same line the court established two years ago — when only two Harper appointees sat on the nine-member court — in unanimously ordering the federal government not to close down a Vancouver clinic at which people could inject illegal drugs under medical supervision.
The ruling does not necessarily mean open season for prostitution. The Conservative government could still craft new laws that make prostitution or related offences criminal activities. If prostitution becomes legalized, cities would be faced with the challenge of where to permit prostitution and — if they refuse to permit it at all, or try to confine it to out-of-the-way places — potential constitutional challenges of their own.
Terri Jean Bedford, one of three current and former prostitutes who brought the challenge to Canada’s prostitution laws, said in court documents she was abused as a child, entered prostitution at 16 to pay for her drug addictions and those of her 37-year-old boyfriend, and was "raped and gang-raped too many times to talk about" as a street prostitute in Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver.
The landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling weighed whether the laws put vulnerable women at increased risk of violence, even murder, against Parliament’s role to make choices in how to best protect individuals and communities. It came after six years of legal skirmishing in the lower courts and 25,000 pages of evidence.
Government lawyers argued that prostitution is an activity prostitutes choose and that requires close regulation to prevent it from becoming a nuisance to communities and a front for drug trafficking and abuse of minors.
The three sex workers spearheading the litigation – Ms. Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott – argued that the laws force prostitutes to operate in dangerous conditions.
The crux of their challenge was in Charter protections of life, liberty and security.
An Ontario trial judge and five Ontario Court of Appeal judges had already largely agreed that prostitutes would be safer if they had the right to set up brothels and hire staff to protect them.
The appeal court gave one victory to the Crown in 2012, ruling in a 3-2 split that communicating for the purposes of prostitution will remain illegal – a finding that Alan Young and his co-counsel, Marlys Edward and Daniel Sheppard, are asking the Supreme Court to reverse.
They faced a phalanx of opponents determined to uphold moral values and prevent communities being disrupted by transactions of commercial sex.
Federal and Ontario lawyers, aided by a coalition of religious groups, maintained that prostitutes have voluntarily chosen a risky lifestyle that degrades themselves and the community as a whole.
They said that permitting, unrestrained, above-ground prostitution would lead to a proliferation of exploitive commercial operations run by pimps.
They argue that Parliament chose to make prostitution legal, yet prohibit some of its most objectionable manifestations – such as street soliciting, brothels, pimping and the likelihood of underage prostitution and human trafficking.
However, Ms. Bedford, Ms. Scott and Ms. Lebovitch maintained there are other, perfectly valid laws that target child prostitution and human trafficking without at the same time endangering prostitutes.
Both sides claimed the experience of countries that have liberalized prostitution laws supports their position. Written submissions of both sides are here.
The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously struck down the country’s major prostitution laws, saying that bans on street soliciting, brothels and people living off the avails of prostitution are arbitrary and create severe dangers for vulnerable women.
The ruling is one of the most significant since the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted in 1982 and will alter a longstanding feature of the Canadian legal landscape, much like previous Charter rulings on gay marriage on abortion did. Laws against brothels and pimps go back to pre-Confederation days.
In the ruling, the Supreme Court — with a majority of judges appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper — insisted the government not put vulnerable people at severe risk. That is much the same line the court established two years ago — when only two Harper appointees sat on the nine-member court — in unanimously ordering the federal government not to close down a Vancouver clinic at which people could inject illegal drugs under medical supervision.
The ruling does not necessarily mean open season for prostitution. The Conservative government could still craft new laws that make prostitution or related offences criminal activities. If prostitution becomes legalized, cities would be faced with the challenge of where to permit prostitution and — if they refuse to permit it at all, or try to confine it to out-of-the-way places — potential constitutional challenges of their own.
Terri Jean Bedford, one of three current and former prostitutes who brought the challenge to Canada’s prostitution laws, said in court documents she was abused as a child, entered prostitution at 16 to pay for her drug addictions and those of her 37-year-old boyfriend, and was "raped and gang-raped too many times to talk about" as a street prostitute in Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver.
The landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling weighed whether the laws put vulnerable women at increased risk of violence, even murder, against Parliament’s role to make choices in how to best protect individuals and communities. It came after six years of legal skirmishing in the lower courts and 25,000 pages of evidence.
Government lawyers argued that prostitution is an activity prostitutes choose and that requires close regulation to prevent it from becoming a nuisance to communities and a front for drug trafficking and abuse of minors.
The three sex workers spearheading the litigation – Ms. Bedford, Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott – argued that the laws force prostitutes to operate in dangerous conditions.
The crux of their challenge was in Charter protections of life, liberty and security.
An Ontario trial judge and five Ontario Court of Appeal judges had already largely agreed that prostitutes would be safer if they had the right to set up brothels and hire staff to protect them.
The appeal court gave one victory to the Crown in 2012, ruling in a 3-2 split that communicating for the purposes of prostitution will remain illegal – a finding that Alan Young and his co-counsel, Marlys Edward and Daniel Sheppard, are asking the Supreme Court to reverse.
They faced a phalanx of opponents determined to uphold moral values and prevent communities being disrupted by transactions of commercial sex.
Federal and Ontario lawyers, aided by a coalition of religious groups, maintained that prostitutes have voluntarily chosen a risky lifestyle that degrades themselves and the community as a whole.
They said that permitting, unrestrained, above-ground prostitution would lead to a proliferation of exploitive commercial operations run by pimps.
They argue that Parliament chose to make prostitution legal, yet prohibit some of its most objectionable manifestations – such as street soliciting, brothels, pimping and the likelihood of underage prostitution and human trafficking.
However, Ms. Bedford, Ms. Scott and Ms. Lebovitch maintained there are other, perfectly valid laws that target child prostitution and human trafficking without at the same time endangering prostitutes.
Both sides claimed the experience of countries that have liberalized prostitution laws supports their position. Written submissions of both sides are here.
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