MONTREAL — While Arieh Perecowicz waited to hear last week whether a local law firm would help him undertake a pro bono appeal of his recent conviction for breaking a taxi bylaw, he remained convinced that justice is on his side.
Perecowicz, 66, is sure he has a case under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
A Montreal law firm was expected to decide this week whether to take it on. As of The CJN’s deadline, Perecowicz did not want to name the firm before it had made a decision.
After seven days of trial spread over several months, Perecowicz was recently found guilty in Municipal Court of breaking bylaw 98 of the municipal taxi code, for having things in his cab that have nothing to do with driving a taxi.
In his case, they were a picture of his daughter, a Canadian flag, a Remembrance Day poppy, as well as a photograph of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Schneerson, and two mezuzot attached to the inside pillars of his cab.
He believes his Charter case, if it ever comes to trial, is relatively simple: that his religious rights were abridged.
Judge Dominique Joly, in her decision, wrote, “It is not… in evidence that the defendant believes his religion requires him to display these items in his vehicle.”
In fact, they were in his car only to “comfort” him, she wrote.
But those words appeared to fly in the face of Perecowicz’s own words at trial.
“[The religious items are] necessary for my belief, my religion,” he stated in his testimony at one point.
“My religion and my belief ask me to put two mezuzahs,” he also said.
“Yes, it’s my belief,” the trial transcript quotes him as saying at another juncture.
“That’s why the mezuzah and the rabbi are there… 44 years driving… and not being killed or in an accident – maybe it has to do with the picture of the rabbi and the mezuzah. That’s my belief.”
“Yes, I do see this as a Charter case,” agreed Abby Shawn, a lawyer who heads Quebec Jewish Congress’ human rights committee.
The question as to whether Perecowicz was allowed to express his religious beliefs was not “fully addressed at all,” Shawn said.
“I feel they mixed up two pivotal questions in the case – whether the objects are necessary for the proper operation of the taxi, and whether the contravention [of the bylaw] violates his fundamental freedoms,” she added.
“When I read the judgement there is confusion on those two questions.”
Moreover, Shawn said, in her mind Perecowicz adequately discharged the “burden of proof” required of him, despite not being a lawyer himself.
“[Perecowicz] says several times that they were necessary for him to have in his car for his personal beliefs… I mean what is religious expression? Our religious expression is very tied into what gives us personal comfort and solace.
“So I don’t understand [Joly’s] reasoning. In a way, I think the Charter question was largely avoided by the judge, either because she didn’t want to deal with it, or some other reason I can’t say. The Charter argument is barely, barely referred to.”
Perecowicz indicated that while the Charter argument could serve as the basis for an appeal, so could other factors, such as the bylaw’s vagueness and discriminatory application.
Why, he wondered, did taxi inspectors continue, after the first ticket, to issue subsequent ones? At the trial, they testified they would not have done so if they had they known there were religious articles in the taxi. But Perecowicz said they knew after the first ticket.
Shawn said she wonders about the broader problem of suppressing religious beliefs because of “vacuums in the law.”
“Do I think that’s what’s happening here? Yes I do,” she said. “Because there is no question we all go into a taxi and see crucifixes hanging from the rearview mirror.
“From what I understand, there has not yet been a single contravention against any taxi driver for having a cross or any other religious icon hanging.
“It leads me to the question why Mr. Perecowicz received so many contraventions for displaying religious symbols in his taxi. It really begs the question as to why it happened to him.”