In a majority decision, Canada’s Supreme Court found that a general barring of niqabs -- worn by some Muslim women -- for witnesses would be ‘untenable’, according to a Reuters news agency report published in the Canadian Lawyer magazine.

Wrongful conviction

The report cites the court’s chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, as finding that the issue engaged two sets of rights – the witness’s freedom of religion and the accused’s right to a fair trial. ‘An extreme approach that would always require the witness to remove her niqab while testifying, or one that would never do so, is untenable,’ ruled the judge on behalf of the 4-3 majority.
However, the report points out that the ruling also said that in cases where a witness’s credibility is central, the court could insist that a woman remove her veil as ‘the possibility of wrongful conviction must weigh heavily in the balance’.