Appeal of Saskatchewan COVID-19 Gathering Restrictions Dismissed by Court

A Saskatchewan Court has dismissed an appeal against the province’s restrictions on outdoor gatherings during the pandemic, calling the curb on charter rights justified. Jasmin Grandel and Darrell Mills filed the original lawsuit, challenging the restrictions on how many people could gather outdoors during the pandemic. The case was dismissed in 2022, with the Court of King’s Bench saying although the restrictions did hinder individual charter rights they were justified. On May 15, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld the decision. “The rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter are not absolute; s. 1 states that they are subject to ‘such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society,’” Justice Jeffrey Kalmakoff wrote in the decision, citing Justice D.B. Konkin of the Court of King’s Bench of Saskatchewan, who on Sept. 20, 2022, noted that “the COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented occurrence and, when it arrived, the available evidence indicated that the consequences of inaction on the part of the Government would be dire.”...