Het verhaal gaat als volgt. Een dame genaamd Rania El-Alloul spant een rechtzaak tegen haar verzekeringmaatschappij omdat die beslag heeft gelegd op haar auto en zij wilt de wagen terugkrijgen.
De Rechter vraagt haar om haar hijab af te nemen, omdat in een rechtzaal het dragen van een hoed en een zonnebril ook verboden is. Toen El-Alloul de rechter wees op het religieuze karakter van haar hijab zei de Rechter dat ze een advocaat moest raadplegen.
El-Alloul antwoordde dat ze geen geld heeft om een advocaat te raadplegen. Gezien ze haar hijab weigerde af te nemen is de zaak dan maar op de rol gezet voor onbepaald termijn.
Mevrouw El-Alloul zegt geschokt te zijn en voelt zich geen Canadees meer, want wanneer ze trouw zweerde om een goede Canadese burger te worden droeg ze ook een hijab. (sic)
Citaat:
THE STAR
Quebec judge won’t hear woman’s case until hijab removed: CBC reports
Rania El-Alloul
Quebec Judge Eliana Marengo told Rania El-Alloul that hats and sunglasses are not allowed in court and she didn’t see why a hijab is any different.
By: The Canadian Press, Published on Thu Feb 26 2015
MONTREAL—A Quebec judge has reportedly refused to hear a woman’s case because she wouldn’t remove her hijab.
The CBC said it obtained an audio recording of proceedings that occurred in the courtroom of Judge Eliana Marengo on Tuesday.
On the recording, the CBC reports that Rania El-Alloul told the judge she is a Muslim, but Marengo told her she could either remove her headscarf or ask for a postponement in order to consult a lawyer.
Marengo told El-Alloul that hats and sunglasses are not allowed and she didn’t see why a hijab is any different.
El-Alloul said she couldn’t afford a lawyer so the case has been adjourned indefinitely.
According to a story on the CBC’s website, El-Alloul was before the court trying to get her car back because it was seized by the Quebec automobile insurance board.
In an interview with the CBC, El-Alloul said she couldn’t believe what was happening.
“I felt that I’m not Canadian any more,” she said. “When I swore by God to be a good Canadian citizen I was wearing my hijab.”
The CBC said Marengo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Citaat:
NATIONAL POST:
‘You are not suitably dressed': Quebec judge refused to hear single mother’s case because of hijab
A woman wearing a hijab. The issue of head-coverings for
Muslim women has been contentious in Quebec over the last few years
Montreal — A Quebec Court judge refused to hear the case this week of a single mother trying to retrieve her car because the woman would not remove her Muslim head scarf.
“In my opinion, you are not suitably dressed,” Judge Eliana Marengo told Rania El-Alloul Tuesday, according to a courtroom recording obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
“Decorum is important. Hats and sunglasses, for example, are not allowed, and I don’t see why scarves on the head would be. The same rules need to be applied to everyone.”
Ms. El-Alloul testified she was on welfare and the mother of three sons. She was trying to get back her car, which had been seized by the provincial automobile insurance board after one of her sons was caught driving it with a suspended licence.
She told the judge she needed the car to provide for her family. “I’m facing money problems,” she said.
But Judge Marengo refused to hear the merits of the case, citing a regulation governing court decorum that states simply, “Any person appearing before the court must be suitably dressed.”
She noted Ms. El-Alloul had said her hijab was a religious requirement. “In my opinion, the courtroom is a secular place and a secular space,” she said. “There are no religious symbols in this room, not on the walls and not on the persons.”
Canadian courts have wrestled with the issue of a witness wearing the niqab, which covers the entire face except for the eyes. The concern then was the right of an accused to assess a witness’s credibility by seeing her face. In 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada established a framework to be applied case by case to determine whether a witness could wear a niqab in court.
Sameer Zuberi, a law graduate and board member with the Canadian Muslim Forum, said this is the first case he is aware of where a woman has been ordered to remove a hijab, which leaves the face exposed.
“I think it’s a clear error that the judge made, in my personal opinion,” he said.
“I think that there’s been a long history in Quebec and Canada of people wearing religious headgear who are defending themselves in court, who are bringing cases in court, who are lawyers themselves.”
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