Pro-Life activist Joe Borowski’s Supreme Court challenge has been postponed until the Fall Court session. Borowski and his lawyer Morris Schumiatcher of Regina were in Ottawa on April 11 to petition the Court to hear the case in June as previously scheduled. However, Justice William McIntrye rejected the petition and instead scheduled the hearing for the first day of the Fall Session on October 3.
Although the case was scheduled to be heard early in June, several corporate cases were inserted into the Court schedule pushing Borowski’s case from the Spring Session to the Fall Session.
In his submission, Schumiatcher maintained that Parliament and the Canadian people are awaiting a decision in the Borowski case, which address the rights of the unborn child under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Morgentaler decision dealt with the rights of the pregnant woman, Schumiatcher said, while a decision in the Borowski case in needed to define the rights of the fetus. Schumiatcher argued that the case should be heard early in June as previously scheduled.
Justice McIntyre refused to rearrange an already full spring schedule, saying that he was not in a position to judge the relative merits of the cases before the Court and their corresponding order of precedence. Instead he assigned the Borowski case to the first two days of the fall session.
“I am disgusted that our court system allows the corporate cases of Air Canada and General Motors to take precedence over the rights of our unborn children,” said Joe Borowski outside the courtroom.
A decision in the case is not expected for up to a year following the October hearing.
