OTTAWA — In what may be the last hurrah for the Canadian Human Rights Act’s vanishing prohibition on hate speech, the Federal Court of Canada has ruled that a tribunal was wrong when it opted not to apply the act’s provisions in a 2009 decision.

Parliament voted in June to repeal section 13 of the act, which bans hate speech on the Internet. The matter is now before the Senate and has yet to receive Royal Assent.

Despite that, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled this week that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal erred in law when it refused to apply the controversial section following a hearing into a complaint by Ottawa lawyer and activist Richard Warman.

Warman filed a complaint in 2003, alleging that Marc Lemire, webmaster of freedomsite.org and a former leader of the far-right Heritage Front, had violated the act by allowing the posting of comments that were likely to expose homosexuals and blacks to hatred or contempt. Lemire responded with a constitutional challenge of section 13.

The tribunal ruled on the case in 2009. While it found that one article on Lemire’s website violated the section, it ruled that penalties in the act were inconsistent with Charter of Rights guarantees of freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.

On that basis, the tribunal declined to apply section 13 or any of its associated remedies, which include cease-and-desist orders and fines of up to $10,000. It found, in effect, that the section 13 regime outlined in the act had become too punitive and unduly impaired Lemire’s right to free expression.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission — which investigates complaints under the human rights act and determines which ones are referred to the quasi-judicial tribunal for adjudication — applied to the Federal Court for judicial review of the tribunal’s findings. Tuesday, Mosley released his 69-page decision.

The court found that the act’s penalty provisions — added in 1998 — were unconstitutional, saying they “fundamentally altered the nature of the section 13 process and brought it uncomfortably close to the state’s ultimate control measure, criminal prosecution.”

But Mosley said the tribunal should have “severed” the penalty provisions and applied section 13 and its other remedies. Those parts of the act are “justifiable in a free and democratic society,” he found, and the tribunal erred by declining to apply them.

“The minimal harm caused by section 13 to freedom of expression is far outweighed by the benefit it provides to vulnerable groups and to the promotion of equality,” he wrote.

Mosley noted that the House of Commons has voted to repeal section 13 and leave the suppression of free speech to criminal prosecution. Nevertheless, he said he had no difficulty concluding that section’s objectives “continue to be substantial and pressing.”

He ordered the tribunal to issue a declaration that Lemire’s publication of the offending article breached section 13 and determine whether a remedy, such as a cease-and-desist order, is appropriate.