Faithful Translations?: Cross-Cultural Communication in Canadian Religious Freedom Litigation

In three religious freedom cases pursued to the Supreme Court of Canada—Amselem, Multani, and Huterrian Brethren of Wilson Colony—religious freedom claimants engaged in litigation over a religious practice particular to their group. Some have argued that cases like these can be seen as cross-cultural encounters. How did the religious freedom claimants seek to make their practices—the succah, the kirpan, and the prohibition on being photographed—understood to the courts? And how did the courts respond to these claims? In this article, I draw out two central values from the literature on crosscultural communication: respect and self-awareness. I then use these values as lenses through which to view participant narratives collected in a qualitative study of litigants, lawyers, and an expert witness. I argue that courts are more likely to achieve a fuller understanding of minority religious practices when they are faithful to the values of respect and self-awareness. This, in turn, can strengthen their proportionality analyses. Of the three cases, the Supreme Court in Multani came the closest to realizing this ideal. The majority in Wilson Colony marked a low point in this regard, failing to fully appreciate the litigants’ commitment to their collectivist worldview. Amselem was something of a middle ground, where the Court deliberately preferred to engage with a thinner account of the religious practice