Canada’s Supreme Court Sides with Jehovah’s Witnesses

● On December 18, 1950, Canada’s Supreme Court reversed itself to rule Jehovah’s witnesses not guilty of sedition by distributing the leaflet Quebec’s Burning Hate for God and Christ and Freedom Is the Shame of All Canada. The case involved Aime Boucher as defendant. Arrested in 1946, his case finally got to the Supreme Court in 1949. The court split, three to two, against the witnesses. Upon application for reargument by the witnesses, the issue came before the full court of nine justices in 1950, and in December a five-to-four decision legally vindicated Jehovah’s witnesses. The case was momentous for Canada, not just because the court reversed itself, but because the historical decision in effect rewrote the concept of sedition previously held in Canadian courts. It brought matters up to date by viewing democratic peoples as the rulers and the officials as servants of the people. The intensely interesting details of this historic case appear in the March 8, 1951, Awake!