22 November 2010 Last updated at 21:43 ET

British Columbia court to rule on anti-polygamy law

A Canadian court has begun hearings on whether Canada's anti-polygamy law violates rights to freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution.

The case focuses on a break-away Mormon sect alleged to practice "plural marriage" in British Columbia.

Authorities have asked the court to affirm the ban is constitutional in order to prosecute alleged polygamists.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has 10,000 members in the US and Canada.

The provincial government in British Columbia is deciding whether and how to crack down on alleged polygamy in a church community in the south-eastern corner of the province.

Craig Jones, a lawyer for the provincial government, warned a British Columbia Supreme Court judge on Monday that if the law was overturned, Canada would become the only Western country to allow polygamy.

'Rights protected'

Authorities had previously declined to prosecute alleged polygamists, fearing the 19th-Century law would be declared unconstitutional.

But on Monday, lawyers for the province of British Columbia told the Vancouver court they had changed their minds.

"Today we have a much fuller appreciation of the social harm of polygamy," Mr Jones said.

Thirty-six witnesses, including some women in polygamous relationships, are expected to testify before the court in Vancouver.

The church and its supporters say the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows it to practice its religion, including plural marriage.

"Consenting adults have the right - the Charter-protected right - to form the families that they want to form," British Columbia Civil Liberties Association lawyer Monique Pongracic-Speier told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

"In some polygamous families, as in some monogamous families, there are abuses and there are difficulties, and it's those abuses or those difficulties that ought to be the target of legal intervention, not the form of relationship itself," she said.

But critics say the relationships subjugate women, who are at times forced into marriages with much older men.

The case is expected to continue until January.