Canada Anti-Prostitution Laws Struck Down: Supreme Court Say Restrictions On The Sex Trade Are Unconstitutional
ByCanada's highest court struck down the country's current restrictions on prostitution on Friday, the Associated Press reported.
The unanimous Supreme Court decision declared that the laws violated prostitutes' guarantee to life, liberty and security. This was a victory for sex workers seeking safer working conditions.
Despite prostitution being legal in Canada, many of the activities associated with the sex trade are classified as criminal offenses.
The court struck down three Prostitution-related laws that banned street soliciting, owning a brothel and living on the avails of prostitution.
The justice's decision upheld an Ontario Court of Appeals ruling last year that declared down the ban on brothels illegal "on the grounds that it endangered sex workers by forcing them onto the streets," the AP reported.
On behalf of the court, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin announced Canada's social landscape has changed since 1990 when the court supported a ban on street solicitation.
"These appeals and the cross-appeal are not about whether prostitution should be legal or not," she stated. "They are about whether the laws Parliament has enacted on how prostitution may be carried out pass constitutional muster. I conclude that they do not." The decision upheld an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling last year that struck down the ban on brothels on
The decision will take effect a year from now, giving parliament a 12-month reprieve to come up with a way to regulate the sex trade, the AP reported.
A Vancouver sex worker who was part of a group that brought the case applauded the decision.
"I'm shocked and pleased that our sex laws will not cause us harm in a year," Amy Lebovitch said in a news conference.
The lawyer for the group of downtown prostitutes said the Supreme Court's decision was "an unbelievably important day for the sex workers but also for human rights."
"The court recognized that sex workers have the right to protect themselves and their safety," she said in a news conference.
Sex workers stepped up their fight for safer working conditions following the serial killings of prostitutes by a pig farmer in British Columbia.