REMOVING THE LAST VESTIGES OF CHRISTIANITY FROM COURTS
OTTAWA,
Mar 1 (LSN) In a letter to the federal Justice department, Brosi
Nutting, chief justice of the Saskatchewan provincial court requested
the removal of a reference to God and the use of the Bible in taking
oaths in Canadian courts. Nutting's request dated April,1998 was made
public by a freedom of information request by the Ottawa Citizen.
The
Citizen reports that a 1995 federal-provincial working group on
multicultural and race relations in the justice system recommended that
judges dispense with God and make witnesses promise to tell the truth.
Apparently some maverick judges have already dispensed with the
traditional oath on the Bible by simply asking witnesses: "Do you swear
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you God?"
Some critics point to the recent Clinton debacle in
the US as a warning about the relationship between a person's
commitment to telling the truth and their recognition that they are
accountable to a greater being.