MONTREAL, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- A judge in Montreal refused to hear the case of a Muslim woman unless she removed her hijab in the courtroom.

Rania el-Alloul was in Judge Eliana Marengo's courtroom Tuesday in order to get her vehicle back after it was seized for a month. Officials took the vehicle after el-Alloul's son was stopped for driving with a suspended license.


In audio of the court proceedings obtained by CBC, Marengo can be heard telling el-Alloul she must remove her head covering in order for her case to be heard. Marengo said el-Alloul was not suitably dressed and that "decorum is important."

"The same rules need to be applied to everyone. I will therefore not hear you if you are wearing a scarf on your head, just as I would not allow a person to appear before me wearing a hat or sunglasses on his or her head, or any other garment not suitable for a court proceeding," Marengo said.

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El-Alloul said she would not remove her hijab because she had been wearing it for several years.

Marengo said the hearing could be postponed so el-Alloul could consult with a lawyer, but the single mother of three said she couldn't afford one. Nor could she wait any longer to get her vehicle back because she needed it.

El-Alloul later told CBC she couldn't believe she was turned away because of her hijab.

"When I came the first day when I made landing in Canada, I was wearing my hijab," she said.

"When I swore by God to be a good Canadian citizen I was wearing my hijab, and the judge, I shook hands with him the same day I became Canadian. I was really very happy. But what happened in court made me feel afraid. I felt that I'm not Canadian anymore."

Sameer Zuberi, a law graduate and a board member with the Canadian Muslim Forum, told the National Post this is the first time he's seen a judge order a woman to remove her hijab in a Canadian court.

"I think it's a clear error that the judge made, in my personal opinion," he said.

"I think that there's been a long history in Quebec and Canada of people wearing religious headgear who are defending themselves in court, who are bringing cases in court, who are lawyers themselves."

The incident occurs as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a discrimination case in which an Oklahoma woman, Samantha Elauf, alleges she was not hired for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch because she wore a head scarf.

Abercrombie & Fitch has a "looks policy" that restricts what sales floor employees can and cannot wear. It bans the wearing of hats, which upper management told the hiring manager included head scarves, even if they are worn for religious purposes.