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Friday February 4, 2005
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Provincial Attorney-General Warns Canada's Polygamy Law Open to Legal Challenge
VANCOUVER, February 4, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – BC’s Attorney General warned Thursday that Canada’s law prohibiting polygamy will not stand up to a legal challenge, because of potential conflicts with laws protecting religious freedoms. Attorney-General Geoff Plant said, “There might well be a case where the court would have to deal with religious freedoms arguments, and I think there is at least some risk that those arguments might succeed,” according to a CanWest News Service report.
Plant is concerned, in part, because police have never laid polygamy charges, despite allegations that polygamists in Bountiful, BC, are marrying girls as young as 13 to much older men.
“My view is that if there is evidence that would support a charge ... it is in the public interest to prosecute, because the section has never been struck down by a judge, by a court, and so it has to be treated as though it's good law,” he said. “I know that some prosecutors may well have some concerns about that, and we won't have to cross that bridge until we find out if there's real evidence out there.”
Former B.C. chief justice Allan McEachern agreed with Plant’s assessment that a court challenge of the polygamy law would probably result in the law being overturned. However, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler disagreed. He said the law, “In my view” is “constitutional and it is enforceable.”
The RCMP has been conducting an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse and incest, since several women from the Bountiful community have left and complained to authorities. The community, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is an offshoot of the Mormon Church.
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