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Colby Cosh: Supreme Court to decide which comes first — Crown oath or Sikh faith

Top court to contemplate when duties of religion can overtake duties of state loyalty

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On Thursday morning, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a little surprise package: it has agreed to entertain the Alberta government’s appeal of Wirring v. Law Society of Alberta, a 2025 decision in which the province’s appeal court struck down the requirement for prospective lawyers to take an oath of allegiance to the sovereign.

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Prabjot Wirring, an Edmontonian, finished articling and thereby qualified for the Alberta bar in 2022. He claimed in court — creating some analytical complexity and confusion about his religious beliefs — that he wasn’t aware that practicing law in Alberta required him to swear allegiance to anybody or anything. He had no problem taking two other professional oaths that require lawyers to serve the public interest and treat their clients properly.

Colby Cosh: Supreme Court to decide which comes first — Crown oath or Sikh faith Back to video

It was the particular concept of allegiance that gave him a problem of conscience, because Wirring is a baptized “Amritdhari” Sikh. This is a higher-level commitment to religious purity within the Sikh faith, a holy order that involves a special ceremony of consecration, and in Wirring’s view he is forbidden from taking any oath that could........

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