A federal judge declared that it was “unreasonable” and unjustified for Canada to use emergency powers to put an end to the anti-government Freedom Convoy protests two years ago.
Judge Richard Mosley found that it was against Canada’s rights charter in a ruling on Tuesday.
According to the federal government, it will appeal the ruling.
In times of emergency, the government is granted additional authority by the Emergencies Act.
Three weeks after protests blocked the capital, on February 14, 2022, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked it.
The opposition to the government’s Covid-19 vaccination mandate, known as the “Freedom Convoy,” attracted attention from around the world when hundreds of protestors, many of whom were in trucks, camped out for weeks around Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
At several border crossing locations around the nation, shorter demonstrations and blockades also occurred.
The government was able to take various measures, including forbidding travel to protest zones by foreign nationals and banning public assembly in certain areas, thanks to the emergency powers.
Judge Mosely concluded in her decision on Tuesday that the proclamation’s issuance was unreasonable and that it was not justified in light of the pertinent factual and legal constraints that had to be taken into account. She also noted that the decision lacked transparency and intelligibility.
The Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association filed the lawsuit.
The act was being used for the first time since it was passed into law in 1988, and they had claimed that the protests did not reach the “high legal threshold” required to invoke it.
On Tuesday, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland defended the government’s decision, saying it was a “option of the last resort” and that the nation at the time faced a threat to its economic and national security.
She told reporters in Montreal, “We acted to secure and protect Canada and to secure and protect the national interests.”
“These were not easy decisions, and it was not an easy time.”
The Canadian government has met the “high threshold” for the act’s use, according to the results of a federal investigation conducted last year.
Leading that investigation, Justice Paul Rouleau described the ruling as a “drastic move” but not a “dictatorial one.”
The Public Order Emergency Commission report, released in February 2023, contained a statement by Mr. Rouleau stating that “lawful protest descended into lawlessness, culminating in a national emergency.”