OTTAWA — There should be limits on the use of the notwithstanding clause that is being increasingly invoked by provinces to curtail people’s Charter rights, the federal government I argued in the challenge of Quebec’s secularism law at the Supreme Court.

In its first legal intervention in the lengthy challenge of Quebec’s controversial law, the federal government argued in submissions filed Wednesday that the Supreme Court should set out limits of Section 33 of the Charter of Rights, known as the notwithstanding clause .

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The clause allows a government to override certain Charter rights for up to five years, at which point the use of the power must be reviewed.

If accepted by Canada’s top court, the government’s proposal could create the first ever substantive limit

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