The Nova Scotia citizen who was denied the return of his personalized licence plate featuring his family name GRABHER on the grounds that it might be deemed “offensive” is getting another chance to argue for the plate. The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) announced today that Lorne Grabher will get a full day appeal hearing on January 19, 2021.
The date will be another chapter in a saga that has stretched on since October 2016, when the Nova Scotia Registrar of Motor Vehicles received a complaint about Grabher’s licence plate. Before this incident, Grabher, his father, and his son all used their last name on a personalized licence plate without any issues for 27 years.
The Registrar had issued the plate each year until it received a lone anonymous complaint, after which the Registrar cancelled Grabher’s plate, stating that the surname on the plate could be “misinterpreted as a socially unacceptable slogan.” In turn, Grabher sued the Registrar for the return of the plate, arguing that the government’s censorship of his surname violated his Charter rights to freedom of expression and his equality rights as a Canadian of Austrian and German descent, according to the JCCF. Grabher likewise challenged the constitutionality of the authorizing regulation.
In a written court ruling published on January 31, 2020, Justice Jamieson denied the reinstatement of the GRABHER licence plate, which left Grabher and his family “profoundly disappointed,” reported the JCCF. In response, expert witness for Grabher, Dr. Debra Soh, argued that people do not commit sexualized crimes because of what they see on vehicle licence plates, stating that the government was “overreaching.”
To this day, Grabher continues to fight for the right to use the licence plate. According to the JCCF, his family’s history, including their name and the heritage it represents, is important to the Grabher family.
“Arbitrary and capricious censorship is a threat to the expressive rights of Canadians,” said Jay Cameron, litigation manager and counsel for Lorne Grabher. “Mr. Grabher should be able to proudly display his last name without a court ruling it is offensive. We look forward to the next stage of these proceedings.”
