A Canadian judge has ruled the government’s use of the country’s Emergencies Act to suppress weeks of protests by truckers and others angry over COVID-19 restrictions in 2022 was unreasonable and unconstitutional.
Thousands of protesters jammed the streets of the capital of Ottawa and besieged Parliament Hill, demonstrating against vaccine mandates for truckers and other precautions, while condemning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.
Trudeau invoked the act on Feb. 14, 2022, allowing authorities to declare certain areas as no-go zones.
“The use of the Emergencies Act allowed the government to arrest the leaders of the Freedom Convoy, freeze bank accounts of protesters, and seize donations of other citizens. Trudeau simply declared that the protesters were threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national emergency,” George Washington University legal scholar Prof. Jonathan Turley noted in his blog.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and several other groups and individuals argued in court that Ottawa ushered in the emergency measures without sound grounds.
In his decision released Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley agreed, saying the use of the Emergencies Act led to the infringement of constitutional rights and was unreasonable.
“I have concluded that the
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