Sex workers Terri-Jean Bedford, left, and Valerie Scott, right, react to the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in March 2012 to strike down a ban on brothels. That was appealed by the federal government to the Supreme Court, expected to rule tomorrow
Photo Credit: Patrick Morrell-CBC

Supreme Court to rule on Canada’s prostitution laws.

After years of legal wrangling in a case that made it’s way to the Supreme Court, a decision tomorrow may result in a change in prostitution laws.

The issue first arrived in the courts in 2009 when Toronto dominatrix Terri-Jean Bedford, along with other sex-trade workers Amy Lebovitch and Valerie Scott. The three collectively have been street walkers, masseuses, escorts,dominatrices, brother owners, and advocates for sex-trade workers.

They said working indoors, as in a brother (bawdy house) and hiring drivers and body guards was safer for sex-trade workers. Keeping a bawdy house is one of the illegal activities.

They challenged three laws dealing with prostitution saying it violated their right to life, liberty and security of person , of freedom of expression, under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms .

At issue are three laws that prevent sex workers from working indoors (brothels), screening clients (communicating for the purposes of prostitution), working collectively and hiring staff (living off the avails of prostitution)

 

In 2010, Ontario’s Superior Court agreed and struck down the laws against bawdy houses, communicating for street prostitution and altered the ban on living off the avails of prostitution to preclude exploitation.

 

Then two years later, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the legalization of bawdy houses but kept the ban on street prostitution.

 

The federal government appealed the decision that altered current laws, while sex trade workers appealed the soliciting ban.

At issue are three laws that prevent sex workers from working indoors, screening clients, working collectively and hiring staff.

 

The Supreme Court has waded through 22-thousand pages of evidence and will hand down a ruling on Friday.

The Court has a number of options. It may decide all three laws are constitutional, or the panel of judges may decide the laws are all unconstitutional, or certain aspects are unconstitutional.

In the latter case, the court might strike the laws down and tell Parliament to rework them into new laws (this could be ordered, immediately or within a certain time frame).

The Supreme Court also has the option to follow what the lower courts did and modify the laws itself by adding or removing words in a bid to make them Charter compliant.

Elsewhere, in France this month following bitter public debate, France’s lower house of parliament voted to make it a crime to pay for sex, in effect punishing the buyers with heavy fines instead of the criminalizing prostitutes.

This is similar to a Swedish law of 1999, and also similar to laws in Norway, Finland, and Iceland.

In Germany prostitution was legalized in 2002, allowing sex workers to get social insurance and sue clients who don’t pay. However, Germany has become a destination for pimps and human traffickers in spite of laws against such practices. The country is studying modifying its laws as a result.

Categories: Health, Politics, Society
Tags: ,

Do you want to report an error or a typo? Click here!

For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.