Families win challenge of Quebec language law

More than two dozen Quebec families who want to send their children to school in English won a legal victory Wednesday over the province's language law.

The Quebec Court of Appeal has ruled the children can attend English public schools if they have attended an English private school for at least a year, or have been granted a special exemption.

The lawyer for the families, Brent Tyler, said the rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms trumped those in the Charter of the French Language.

"They started this case in 2002," Tyler said. "They lost all the way up. There was a unanimous vote in the national assembly [passing Bill 104], and now we have a Court of Appeal saying, 'You were right all along.' It's tremendously [fulfilling]."

Tyler said he expects the ruling will be appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Five years ago, Bill 104 was passed by the national assembly to closetheloophole.

For years, the loophole in the unamended law gave any child who had attended private English school access to the public English system.

Often, children who did not havethe rightto attend an English public school would simply attend one year at a private school, just to gain access to the English public system.

With the passing of Bill 104, francophone and immigrant families, for example,had no option but to send their children to school in French.

But in a two-to-one decision, the Quebec Court of Appeal sided with the families, ruling against the amended language law.