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Legal precedent gives the city grounds to regulate protests outside Ottawa’s only publicly-funded abortion clinic, say law experts who are confused by the city’s hardline position that its hands are tied by the charter.

The Morgentaler Clinic on Bank Street has complained that authorities have failed to act during years of harassment by anti-abortion demonstrators. The clinic says its clients and staff have been yelled at, intimidated and even spit on by protesters wearing graphic sandwich boards outside of its building and has asked that protesters be moved to the other side of the street.

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The city says the clinic protesters fall into a legal grey zone and that a “special events” bylaw restricting demonstrators across the street is meant to apply to larger events, not individuals.

When speaking last week about whether the city would consider creating a bylaw for individual protesters, Mayor Jim Watson said: “Our lawyer said if we were to bring in something specific for (individual protesters), it would be challenged under the charter in two minutes.” Police Chief Charles Bordeleau said police must balance the clinic’s request for help with constitutional rights to expression and assembly.