Manitoba judge quashes discipline decision but orders medical student expelled

A Manitoba judge has set aside a university discipline decision for errors in its Charter analysis but ordered the medical student expelled after conducting the required balancing herself.

In Zaki v. University of Manitoba, 2026 MBKB 118, the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba ruled on August 26, 2026 that the University Discipline Committee had wrongly excluded freedom of religion from its analysis and had failed to balance Charter protections when deciding whether Rafael Zaki’s Facebook posts constituted unprofessional conduct.

Justice Grammond nevertheless found that the posts amounted to unprofessional conduct and that expulsion from the university’s undergraduate medical education program was proportionate. Rather than send the dispute back for another disciplinary hearing, she made that determination herself. Costs remained open for agreement or further submissions.

A second discipline decision under review

The dispute arose from three Facebook posts in February 2019, when Zaki was a first-year medical student. Two concerned support for carrying firearms. The third included a lengthy essay opposing abortion, which became the central issue in the proceedings. Zaki removed the firearms posts after a few days and the essay after about 18 hours.

Zaki argued that the posts expressed his religious beliefs as a Coptic Orthodox Christian and that the university had expelled him because he would not change those beliefs. The university maintained that the content and manner of the posts breached the professional obligations of a medical student.

An earlier committee decision to expel him, issued in 2020, had been quashed on judicial review in 2021. The court then found failures to consider an apprehension of bias in the earlier process and to address Charter protections. A new hearing followed, and the committee again ordered expulsion in May 2022. That second decision was the subject of this judicial review.

Grammond rejected the argument that the committee lacked authority because the posts appeared on Zaki’s personal social-media profile. The essay discussed a medical procedure, he was studying medicine, and the public posts generated complaints within the university community. The connection supported the committee’s conclusion that the posts were a university matter under its misconduct procedure. The judge cautioned that a different subject or a different field of study could have led to different conclusions.

Charter errors required the decision to be set aside

The application of the Charter to the committee’s decision was not disputed. The central constitutional questions concerned which protections were engaged and how they should be weighed against the university’s responsibilities.

The committee accepted that Zaki’s posts were grounded in religious beliefs but concluded that freedom of religion was not engaged, treating the dispute as one about the manner of expression. Grammond found that conclusion incorrect. Freedom of religion includes the public expression of sincerely held religious beliefs, and the essay satisfied that connection.

That finding did not mean the university had disciplined Zaki simply for holding anti-abortion beliefs. The judge rejected his argument that the institution wanted him to recant his core beliefs. She distinguished those beliefs from the contents of the posts that prompted the complaints and disciplinary process.

The committee also failed to apply the balancing framework from Doré v. Barreau du Québec when deciding whether the posts were unprofessional conduct. It had considered Charter protections in addressing which rights were engaged and at the penalty stage, but had not carried out the required analysis at the misconduct stage.

Under that framework, an administrative decision must proportionately balance Charter protections against the decision-maker’s statutory objectives. Here, the relevant objectives were a safe and respectful learning environment and ensuring that graduates met the program’s genuine academic requirements, including professionalism. The earlier court ruling required the committee to examine both misconduct and penalty through that framework. Its failure to do so made its misconduct finding unreasonable.

The court decided the outcome itself

Zaki asked for re-enrolment, removal of disciplinary entries and an order preventing another committee hearing. The university argued that any fresh determination should remain with its disciplinary body.

Grammond agreed that returning the matter to the committee after years of proceedings would be neither fair nor useful. But she declined to order re-enrolment without examining the substance. She instead conducted her own Charter balancing and assessed both misconduct and sanction.

The judge recognized Zaki’s right to hold and publicly express religious views, even when speech is unpopular or offensive, and the university’s obligation to accommodate religious beliefs. She also examined the program’s requirements of empathy, compassion, respect, responsibility and professional conduct.

In that context, Grammond found that the essay’s extreme language about abortion, patients and physicians conflicted with those professional standards. Among the material she considered were its comparisons involving slavery and its call for physicians performing abortions to face murder charges and exclusion from medical practice. The reasoning focused on the content, its deliberate preparation and its connection to medical education, rather than treating an anti-abortion position by itself as disqualifying.

The judge acknowledged an important evidentiary limit: the complainants did not attend the disciplinary hearing, and no evidence established harm to them personally. She nevertheless inferred an adverse effect from the 18 complaints and concluded that a reasonable apprehension of harm could inform the balancing exercise without direct proof of individual harm.

Why a lesser penalty was rejected

Grammond considered Zaki’s proposed alternatives, including suspension, and the need to impair Charter protections as little as reasonably possible while meeting the university’s objectives. She concluded that his continuing lack of insight into the posts’ impact made expulsion proportionate in this case.

The judge gave little weight to the final apology letter because it had evolved through a remediation process under significant institutional influence. She also accepted that Zaki was entitled to deny legal responsibility: his refusal to admit misconduct was not an aggravating factor, although it did not provide mitigation.

Apologies were not used to establish misconduct. The judge distinguished that question from their possible relevance to sanction, finding that Manitoba’s Apology Act did not prohibit considering an apology when selecting a penalty after liability had been established.

The court also rejected the challenges alleging a reasonable apprehension of bias in the second hearing, including arguments about the panel chair’s university reporting relationship, references to earlier proceedings and the attendance of university lawyers as observers.

The result was therefore a fresh judicial determination of expulsion despite the successful challenge to the committee’s legal analysis. It was a fact-specific application of Charter balancing and professional standards, with no automatic entitlement to re-enrolment arising from the decision being quashed.