Is It Ever Ethical for Christians to Disobey Court Orders?

With the imposition of a province-wide lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19, the last few weeks have seen Christians across Ontario vigorously debate the ethics of civil disobedience. If anything has been made clear during this season, it’s that Christians can and will disagree in good faith over how to respond to the uncertain situation in which we find ourselves. Much has already been written on this subject, including thoughtful pieces by Paul Carter, Wyatt Graham and Paul Martin. My goal in this post isn’t to rehash what others have already said. Instead, I want to zero in on a legal question that has suddenly become relevant over the past week: what are a Christian’s ethical obligations when it comes to obeying court orders?

To appreciate the complexity of this question, we need to understand how court orders work. During litigation, Canadian courts have the authority to issue orders against parties to do or not do certain things. One such situation where this might arise is where someone has been charged for violating a law (such as, for example, the Reopening Ontario Act) which they intend to argue is unconstitutional. While that party awaits trial, the court may decide (either on its own initiative or on the application of the Crown) to order that they comply with the law under which they’ve been charged; conversely, the court may also issue an order exempting them from the law’s effects. Per section 127 of the Criminal Code, a party that fails to comply with any such order is in contempt of court and may be subject to a fine, imprisonment, or both.

It’s also important to recognize that, by its very nature, a court order cannot limit or infringe the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 32 of the Charter states that its guarantees are only enforceable against legislative and executive actors – not judicial ones. Granted, courts are responsible for interpreting and applying constitutional provisions such as those found in the Charter. This means that the judiciary is bound to follow the constitution as it exercises its authority. However, while appellate courts may overturn decisions of lower courts where they misapply the law, it would be incorrect to say that a court order itself can violate the Charter in the same way that a piece of legislation or administrative decision might.

This brings us to the ethics of disobeying court orders, particularly where they concern compliance with a law that a party argues is unconstitutional. We need to remember that an order to comply with a law is not determinative of its constitutionality: the court has simply issued an injunction to prevent a party from further violating that law until their defence can be heard on the merits. In these cases, I would contend that Christians are under a weightier moral obligation to comply with the court order than they were under the challenged law. 

To be clear, I’m not saying that civil disobedience in this latter instance is necessarily warranted: there are ways of disputing the constitutionality of laws without breaking them. But even where a Christian has conscientiously decided based on their reading of scripture that such actions are justified, this is a very different thing from violating a court order. When a Christian has openly appealed to a court’s authority, I would even go so far as to say that it can be disingenuous to flagrantly breach the orders which that tribunal subsequently makes. It would be as if Paul decided in the middle of his calculated appeal to Festus in Acts 25 that he no longer recognized Caesar’s authority because his ultimate appeal was to the authority of Christ.

Obviously, there will be exceptions to this rule. If, for example, a law censored a pastor from counselling or preaching on a particular passage of scripture – a clear instance in which the state would be forbidding something which God unequivocally commands – then I would agree that disobedience would be biblically warranted not only against the law itself but also against any court orders to comply with it. Alternatively, a Christian may be charged under what they believe is an unjust law but have no intention of mounting a defence or challenging the constitutionality of that law in court. In such cases, the believer has not made an open appeal to judicial authority, and so the ethical calculus for disobeying court orders is different.

Such exceptions, though, will be rare. In most cases, refusal to comply with a judicial order will, in my view, amount to a failure to be “subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution” (1 Peter 2:13) by “[resisting] what God has appointed” and flouting the authorities which “have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1-2).

My personal opinion is that the ongoing lockdown of Ontario churches does not meet this threshold for disobeying court orders. This is largely for the same reasons that I find the theological cases currently being made for civil disobedience in general uncompelling. That said, as COVID-19 case numbers across the province decrease, the constitutional arguments against church lockdowns will grow stronger. None of what I’m saying should be taken as undermining the churches that have and will continue to bring Charter challenges in the days and weeks ahead.

Some will no doubt disagree with my take on this admittedly contentious question. So be it. As a Christian lawyer, I have a duty to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to speak out in love and candour when I believe they are at risk of falling into error on these sorts of issues. As the saying goes, “[f]aithful are the wounds of a friend, profuse are the kisses of an enemy” (Proverbs 27:6). My prayer is that none of us will tarnish our public witness by showing contempt for the very institutions to which we have appealed for justice during this dark season in our province’s history.