Quebec judge refuses request for fully vaccinated jury at Montreal trial

A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled a juror doesn't need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to participate in a Montreal fraud trial.

Justice Mario Longpre wrote in a ruling released Friday that full immunization wasn't necessary and cited privacy concerns and jury representativeness in his ruling.

The accused in the trial had brought the request, citing a recent decision in Ontario that saw an Ottawa judge rule that all jurors participating in a murder trial would need to be fully inoculated with two doses of vaccine.

That ruling cited concerns about the delta variant and rising case counts.

But Ontario's Juries Act allows those who aren't physically able to perform their duties to be declared ineligible, a distinction that doesn't exist in Quebec, where the law only allows those with mental incapacity or impairment to be exempted, Longpre wrote.

"The Jurors Act applicable in Quebec does not allow it to declare candidate jurors disqualified by reason of a physical incapacity, even if it were to be concluded that the fact of not being adequately vaccinated constitutes such an incapacity," the judge wrote.

Courts have differed on full vaccination for jurors in recent Canadian judgments. One decision from B.C. Supreme Court last month did not allow the Crown to ask jurors questions about their vaccination status, citing privacy.