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Supreme Court won’t hear appeal of Nova Scotia’s man’s ‘Grabher’ licence plate case

Mar 17, 2022 | 8:41 AM

OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada won’t hear an appeal by a Nova Scotia man who was seeking to reverse the revocation of a personalized licence plate bearing his surname, “Grabher.”

As is customary, the court did not give reasons for its decision released today on Lorne Grabher’s leave to appeal.

Grabher’s defence team had maintained that a previous Nova Scotia Supreme Court ruling violated his right to freedom of expression.

In a unanimous ruling last August, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal concluded the trial judge was right to rule that Grabher’s licence plate was not an area to which freedom of expression applied.

That decision was then appealed to the top court by the Halifax-area man’s defence lawyers.

Grabher’s Nova Scotia plate, which he had for nearly 30 years, was recalled by the province’s Registrar of Motor Vehicles in December 2016 after it received a complaint that the sign promoted hatred toward women.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 17, 2022.

The Canadian Press