In essence, the Alberta Court of Appeal has excused a lawyer from pledging allegiance to Canada

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Well, who needs some silly old king anyway? He’s only the head of state, right?

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On Tuesday (pending appeal, one hopes), Alberta became the latest province in which lawyers called to the bar needn’t swear allegiance to the monarch. Prabjot Singh Wirring argued the requirement to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second,” as the oath read when he challenged it, violated his religious freedoms. His strict Amritdhari Sikh faith prevented him from pledging fealty to anyone or anything other than God, he argued.

And on Tuesday, the Alberta Court of Appeal unanimously backed him up. “The requirement to take the oath of allegiance forced the appellant to choose between following his religious convictions or practising law in his home province: he could not have both,” the judges concluded.

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