Heirs Successors and Citizenship Oath

constitutional rights: As is customary, the court did not offer reasons for its decision, according to Globe and Mail. More Related to this StoryVictoria mayor apologizes for not swearing oath to the QueenGerry Flahive My Canadian oath: WhateverGlobe editorial An oath of allegiance to a person is a potent symbolImmigrants seeking citizenship are required to swear to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her Heirs and Successors, an oath the three people say violates their constitutional rights to freedom of expression and religion. The top court declined on Thursday to hear a constitutional challenge from three permanent residents in the Toronto area who have refused to swear the citizenship oath, meaning they cannot become Canadians and vote. They were trying to challenge an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling issued last August that the group was wrong to take the oath literally. That ruling, written by Justice Karen Weiler for the three-judge appeal panel, also held that a citizenship ceremony does not violate the appellants’ freedom of expression because they have the opportunity to publicly disavow what they consider to be the message conveyed by the oath after they take it. That decision, citing previous Canadian court rulings, held that new citizens are not swearing allegiance to the Queen herself and that the reference to the Queen is symbolic of our form of government and the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.