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MONTREAL — Comedians in Quebec will be afraid to make controversial jokes if a 2016 ruling against Mike Ward by the province’s Human Rights Tribunal is upheld, lawyer Julius Grey said Wednesday.

Grey sought to convince a panel of three judges on Quebec’s Appeal Court that a joke about drowning an “ugly” disabled boy might have been distasteful — but it must remain legal in a free and democratic society.

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Ward, a popular Quebec comedian, is appealing a Quebec Human Rights Tribunal ruling that his performances included discriminatory comments about a young disabled singer, Jeremy Gabriel. The tribunal ordered Ward to pay $35,000 in moral and punitive damages to Gabriel and $7,000 to his mother.

“In this particular case, if the judgement is maintained, no one will be able to dare to be a stand-up comic, because normally you make fun of things that are controversial — otherwise it’s not funny,” Grey told reporters at the courthouse. “If anything that is controversial can authorize someone to say, ‘I was hurt, I’m going to court,’ then we’re finished.”