View cases - Stewart McKelvey

- 38 -determining, either explicitly or implicitly, the content of a subjective understanding ofreligious requirement, “obligation”, precept, “commandment”, custom or ritual. Secularjudicial determinations of theological or religious disputes, or of contentious matters ofreligious doctrine, unjustifiably entangle the court in the affairs of religion.51 That said, while a court is not qualified to rule on the validity or veracity ofany given religious practice or belief, or to choose among various interpretations of2004 SCC 47 (CanLII)belief, it is qualified to inquire into the sincerity of a claimant’s belief, where sincerityis in fact at issue: see Jones, supra; Ross, supra. It is important to emphasize, however,that sincerity of belief simply implies an honesty of belief: see Thomas v. Review Boardof the Indiana Employment Security Division, supra.52 According to American constitutional law scholar Professor Laurence Tribe,the jurisprudence in this area evinces that inquiries into a claimant’s sincerity must beas limited as possible. He argues that “given the widening understanding of whatconstitutes religion in our society, the very rights ostensibly protected by the freeexercise clause might well be jeopardized by any but the most minimal inquiry intosincerity”: L. H. Tribe, American Constitutional Law (2nd ed. 1988), at pp. 1245-46.While this was written in the context of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,I believe that it is equally applicable to delimiting the court’s role in interpretingreligious freedom under the Quebec (or the Canadian) Charter. Indeed, the court’s rolein assessing sincerity is intended only to ensure that a presently asserted religious beliefis in good faith, neither fictitious nor capricious, and that it is not an artifice. Otherwise,nothing short of a religious inquisition would be required to decipher the innermostbeliefs of human beings.