An Ontario judge has turned down a request from two religious groups and a conservative women’s group to take part in a constitutional challenge of the country’s prostitution laws.

Mr. Justice Ted Matlow of the Ontario Superior Court said that the groups would be liable to turn the trial into a soapbox for spiritual views, which would be out of place in a strictly legal proceeding.

Judge Matlow said that the groups struck him as being unaware that the challenge “does not provide a political platform where interested persons are permitted to speak in order to advance their personal views, beliefs, policies and interests at large.”

The ruling came as a blow to the Christian Legal Fellowship, REAL Women of Canada and Catholic Civil Rights League – which had argued that the court should hear a broad range of voices on a question with important moral dimensions.

Do prostitution laws violate a constitutional guarantee to life, liberty and security of the person by exposing sex workers to danger will be the question before the Ontario court in the fall. The judge said the groups seemed unaware that the challenge:

“does not provide a political platform where interested persons are permitted to speak in order to advance their personal views, beliefs, policies and interests at large.”

Globe and Mail