It is a ‘God-given’ right to flip the bird at someone, judge rules

By LegalMatters Staff • Offending others with crude hand gestures may not be polite but it does not rise to the level of criminal behaviour, a judge in Montreal recently ruled.

The case involved neighbours who lived on a small street in Beaconsfield, Que. According to the judgment, police charged a 45-year-old with criminal harassment and uttering threats after a neighbour claimed that the educator had given him the middle finger and made a throat-slashing gesture toward him.

Those alleged actions came after the complainant swore at the teacher and threatened him while holding a power tool “in a menacing way,” the judgment notes.

In “resoundingly acquitting the accused,” the judge questioned how this case made it to court.

“It is deplorable that the complainants have weaponized the criminal justice system in an attempt to exert revenge on an innocent man for some perceived slights that are, at best, trivial peeves,” he stated.

“I agree with the judge that giving someone the middle finger is not a crime, but is in fact “a God-given, Charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian,” says Ottawa criminal lawyer Céline Dostaler. “As the judge noted, ‘offending someone is not a crime.’”

Dostaler says that this case illustrates how some people can be offended by trivial matters.

“Flipping the bird is nothing more than an expression of frustration,” she says. “And it’s a better expression than having somebody yell vulgarities where other people not involved in the conflict can hear them.”

In this instance, the teacher could have escalated the conflict by physically confronting the neighbour, says Dostaler.

“Giving his neighbour the middle finger and walking away, as he did, was the best option,” she says. “Flipping the bird to someone is part of freedom of speech and the right to express your opinion.”