Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal reserved judgment in September 2024 on the province’s attempt to restrict a constitutional challenge to its school pronoun law. The procedural dispute later produced an important ruling about what courts may still examine after a legislature invokes the notwithstanding clause.
The appeal did not decide whether the law was good policy
The Parents’ Bill of Rights requires parental consent before a school uses a new gender-related preferred name or pronoun for a student under 16. The appeal focused on the legal route available to UR Pride, not a final assessment of every effect on students.
Policy arguments about parents, privacy and safety remained relevant to the wider controversy but could not substitute for constitutional analysis.
The lower court allowed litigation to continue
UR Pride had challenged an earlier policy, and the legislature then enacted the requirement in statute with a section 33 declaration. A Court of King’s Bench judge allowed an amended case to proceed despite that change.
Saskatchewan appealed because it argued that continued scrutiny undermined the intended legal effect of the override.
Section 33 has defined limits
The notwithstanding clause can temporarily protect legislation from remedies under specified Charter provisions, including fundamental freedoms, legal rights in sections 7 through 14, and equality rights. A declaration normally lasts five years unless renewed.
It does not override democratic rights, mobility rights, language rights or every possible legal claim.
Section 12 became a central question
The challengers relied in part on the Charter protection against cruel and unusual treatment or punishment. Saskatchewan had not expressly shielded the law from section 12, leading to disagreement about whether that claim could be heard.
Allowing a claim to proceed still requires it to satisfy demanding legal tests at later stages.
The court took time to issue written reasons
After two days of argument, the panel reserved its decision. That routine step meant the judges would analyze the record and submissions before releasing reasons rather than announce an immediate result.
No reliable inference about the outcome could be drawn from the delay or questions asked during the hearing.
The later ruling clarified the procedural outcome
In August 2025, the Court of Appeal allowed part of Saskatchewan’s appeal but concluded that judicial review could continue in a narrower form. UR Pride and its counsel described the result as permitting the challenge to move forward.
The ruling did not suspend the pronoun requirement or decide the ultimate merits of the constitutional claims.
A further appeal remained possible
The Supreme Court of Canada later granted leave to hear Saskatchewan’s appeal from the 2025 judgment. Leave means the national court agreed to consider the legal issues; it does not endorse either side’s position.
The case therefore continued to evolve after the original reserved-decision headline.
Careful chronology prevents misinformation
Readers should distinguish the 2023 legislation, the 2024 hearing, the 2025 appeal judgment and later Supreme Court proceedings. Combining those stages can falsely imply that a court struck down or approved the law.
The accurate account is narrower: the appeal courts were defining which constitutional questions could be litigated after section 33 was invoked, while the consent rule remained in force unless changed through legislation or a separate court order.
