Monday, March 02, 2015
Canadian court upholds requiring oath to Queen for citizenship
Queen Elizabeth II
Canada's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to remove the country's citizenship oath, which requires applicants to swear allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II .
The appeal was launched by three permanent residents who wanted to obtain citizenship but not want to pledge allegiance to the royal family. Native-born Canadians do not have to take any oath.
The plaintiffs say the vow violates religious and conscientious beliefs. Simone Topey, a Rastafarian from Jamaica, and Dror Bar-Natan, an Israeli Jew, say their religion forbids them from taking an oath to any person.
"I can't do something that I don't believe in," Topey, told reporters outside a Toronto court on Tuesday according to Canadian TV News. "I want to be real to Canada, I want to be loyal to the country. I'm trying to become a citizen not a subject."
Michael McAteer, a staunch republican from Ireland, says he believes the oath is unnecessary and would violate his conscience.
The trio's lawyer Peter Rosenthal told the Court of Appeal on Tuesday that allowing would-be citizens to opt out of the oath doesn't cause any harm.
Australia, also a constitutional monarchy, scrapped its pledge to the monarchy 20 years ago.
Government lawyer Kristina Dragaitis argued the monarchy symbolizes the Constitution, the rule of law and the right to dissent. She said, the appellants are taking a "literal approach" to the oath.
The Supreme Court, as is customary, gave no reasons for refusing to hear the appeal.
SOURCE
The big appeal of the monarchy for Canadians is that it is not American -- so they're going to cling onto it
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3 comments:
It is of course only a formality as Queen Elizabeth is the formal head of state for Canada, and a constitutional figure-head at that.
Canada is free to amend the oath or even have a different head-of-state, but in the meantime if immigrants want to be Canadian citizens it's not up to them to dictate the terms!
(If they have an atavistic dislike of Britain because they're Irish or because QEII is head of the Church of England - it's plainly pathetic if not an extreme objection under the circumstances!)
What a cheek to actually object to the terms of their citizenship application. If they they don't like it they can apply to another country that may suit them better!
Australia had an asshole as Prime Minister when that was done. It should never been scrapped given the issue we currently have with failing multiculturalism. Integrate or emigrate should be our motto now. Allah does not supersede Australian law.
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