Here’s the news story from the National Post.

Excerpt:

In her decision released Tuesday, Justice Susan Himel concluded that prohibiting sex-trade workers from operating a common bawdy house, living off the avails of prostitution and communicating for the purposes of prostitution, violate the Charter of Rights.

“I have found that the law as it stands, is currently contributing to the danger faced by prostitutes,” Judge Himel wrote in a 131-page ruling.

The three sections of the Criminal Code ruled unconstitutional, “force prostitutes to choose between their liberty interest and their right to security of the person,” she said.

The long-awaited decision stems from a constitutional challenge initiated last year by three women involved in the sex trade.

“It is important to state at the outset what this case is not about: The court has not been called upon to decide whether or not there is a constitutional right to sell sex or to decide which policy model regarding prostitution is better,” Judge Himel said. “Rather, it is the court’s task to decide the merits of this particular legal challenge, which is whether certain provisions of the Criminal Code are in violation of the Charter.”

[…]“We want to be good citizens and now we can,” said Valerie Scott, executive director of the Sex Professionals of Canada and one of the three women in the constitutional challenge.

I think I understand women fairly well, and I think that what was going through Susan Himel’s head was something like this: “if I make this legal, then women who do this sort of thing will feel a lot better about it, because no one will judge them since it’s legal”.

Barbara Kay weighs in here.

I read one feminist web site that called Ms. Himel’s decision “Excellent News”, but I didn’t want to link to them. I would say that legalized prostitution is consistent with feminism’s promotion of non-marital sex as a way of eliminating the unequal gender roles inherent in marriage.