Azim Hussain, outspoken Bill 21 critic, appointed as Quebec Superior Court judge

MONTREAL -

A well-known opponent of Bill 21 has been appointed by Ottawa to serve as a Quebec Superior Court judge.

Montreal lawyer Azim Hussain was appointed this week by federal Justice Minister David Lametti to serve on the court. Hussain represented the Coalition Inclusion Quebec before the Superior Court in 2020 during a legal challenge to Bill 21, a Quebec law that bans public-sector workers from wearing certain religious symbols on the job in order to protect Quebec’s religious neutrality.

During the case Hussain argued the legislation is discriminatory and because it invokes the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Constitution, if it is upheld it would open the door to even worse human rights abuses in the future. At the time supporters of the bill accused Hussain of gross exaggeration because he touched on the discrimination faced by Japanese Canadians during World War II and mentioned anti-Semitic legislation adopted by the Nazis at the time. Media reports said he had linked the Quebec bill to the Nazis but in fact he never actually compared it to Nazi law.

At the time Quebec Superior Court Judge Marc-Andre Blanchard told the Journal de Montreal that the discussion before the court was “purely theoretical.”

According to the website Droit-Inc.com, Hussain later said he never implied that Bill 21 was equivalent to the Nuremberg laws.

“The goal of those examples was to put forward judicial principles the Court should consider even in very remote and extreme scenarios,” Hussain said at the time.

The judicial appointment comes after the fall federal election during which the possible interference of the federal government in Quebec’s affairs, including in any potential future legal challenge to Bill 21, was a sore point for Premier Francois Legault. Hussain’s legal challenge did not succeed and the Superior Court upheld the law almost entirely. The case will likely end up before the Supreme Court.