Supreme court clears Quebec student leader of contempt four years after he gained fame during the 2012 protests

MONTREAL – Former Quebec student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois has been cleared of contempt of court by Canada’s highest court, which ruled there was no proof he incited members to block access to Université Laval classes during 2012 protests.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against a former Laval student who had argued Nadeau-Dubois defied a court injunction in a May 2012 television interview.

In the interview with RDI, Nadeau-Dubois, then spokesman for a student group known as CLASSE, said it was “quite unfortunate” that some students had turned to the courts to be able to attend classes during the long-running “strike” to protest a tuition hike.

“So we find it perfectly legitimate for people to do what they have to do to enforce the strike vote, and if that takes picket lines, we think it’s a perfectly legitimate way to do it,” Nadeau-Dubois said.

Jean-François Morasse, a fine-arts student who had recently won an injunction requiring protesters to stop blocking his access to class, brought a contempt-of-court charge against the high-profile student leader.

He was successful in the Court of Quebec, and Nadeau-Dubois was sentenced to 120 hours of community service, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. Morasse decided to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The majority ruling, written by Justices Rosalie Abella and Clément Gascon, found that it had not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Nadeau-Dubois was aware of Morasse’s injunction when he gave the interview.

“If Mr. Nadeau-Dubois did not know about the order, he cannot have intended to interfere with it, or encourage others to do so,” they wrote.

The court also said his call for picket lines could have meant peaceful pickets that did not block access to classes.

Writing for the three dissenting judges, Justice Richard Wagner called the 2012 protests “a period of social unrest that was without precedent

in the history of Quebec” and said Nadeau-Dubois knew there were injunctions prohibiting blockades.

“To claim that the respondent did not know there were orders whose relevant terms prohibited blocking students’ access to their classes is to totally disregard the contextual evidence before the trial judge,” Wagner wrote.

A jubilant Nadeau-Dubois told reporters the Supreme Court had sent a strong message. “Public figures in social movements have to have freedom of speech, and they have the right to criticize a court order if they disagree with it,” he said. “The Supreme Court says clearly that in May 2012 I did not incite students to violate the court order.”

Amnesty International, which intervened in the case in support of Nadeau-Dubois, called the ruling a victory for freedom of expression.

National Post

• Email: ghamilton@nationalpost.com | Twitter: grayhamilton