Court rejects students’ request for injunction against McGill encampment
MONTREAL — Pro-Palestinian activists who have pitched their tents on the McGill University campus scored a legal victory on Wednesday when a Quebec judge rejected a request for an injunction to stop their protest.
Two students at the Montreal university had asked Quebec Superior Court to order protesters to move at least 100 metres from school buildings, saying their presence had created an environment of aggression and left them feeling unsafe.
Justice Chantal Masse ruled Wednesday that the students failed to demonstrate that their access to the school was being blocked or that they would be unable to write their final exams. She also took into account statements from the protesters who argued that such an order would have a “chilling effect” on their right to free speech.
“The court is of the opinion that the balance of inconveniences leans to the side of the protesters, whose freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly would be seriously affected,” she wrote. The evidence of harm to the students, on the other hand, is “rather limited, arising more from subjective worries and discomfort rather than precise and serious worries for their safety.”