Canada,Nova Scotia,Ontario,Croatia,Germany

Canada
In 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the Lord's Day Act. However, at that time, only the Canadian Bill of Rights existed. That document only protected existing Canadian rights. As a result, the Court noted that Canada was an overwhelmingly Christian country that had accepted Sunday closing laws for years. The Court determined that the Lord's Day Act did not force people to practice Christianity or stop practicing their own religion.

However, later that year, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was introduced, ensuring freedom of conscience and religion, regardless of existing federal or provincial laws. On April 24, 1985 - the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Lord's Day Act violated Canadians' freedom of religion. The 1985 ruling examined the original purpose of the act. It found that the Christian value of keeping the Sabbath holy had been incorporated into a law that affected all Canadians, Christian or not. This law -- the Lord's Day Act -- prevented non-Christians from performing otherwise legal activities on Sundays. This was inconsistent with the Canadian charter.

Nova Scotia
Until October 4, 2006, Nova Scotia was the only province in Canada that prohibited year-round Sunday shopping. An experiment with the practice was held in 2003 and in 2004 a binding plebiscite was held which resulted in 45% of voters in favour of Sunday shopping and 55% voting against the practice. The Retail Business Uniform Closing Day Act allowed some stores, such as video rental outlets, pharmacies and book stores, to open on Sundays, but department stores had to remain closed. The restrictions were based on the area of a store and its form of business.

By mid-2006, several grocers in Nova Scotia including Pete's Frootique and larger chains such as Atlantic Superstore and Sobeys circumvented the law by reconfiguring their stores on Sundays into separate businesses, each of which was small enough in area to be exempt from the Retail Business Uniform Closing Day Act. For example, a Halifax-area Sobeys location was known as the "Sobeys Queen Street Mall" and housed the Sobeys Retail Fish Store Ltd., Sobeys Fruit Stand Ltd., Sobeys Bakery and Bulk Food Ltd. and eight other separate "businesses".

On June 23, 2006, the Premier of Nova Scotia, Rodney MacDonald, announced new limits on Sunday shopping as a means to honour the wishes of voters in the 2004 plebiscite. The proposed new regulations prohibited grocers and other retailers from opening if they reconfigured their businesses as separate operating units after June 1, 2006. The premier also announced that he would seek the views of the public in a new plebiscite to coincide with municipal elections scheduled for 2008.

On July 2, 2006 members of the Halifax Regional Police entered the Barrington Street Atlantic Superstore in Halifax with measuring tapes and began an investigation to see if the grocer was in compliance with the Retail Business Uniform Closing Day Act. Three days later, on July 5, 2006, Sobeys filed a motion in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to have the Retail Business Uniform Closing Day Act and the new regulations announced by Premier MacDonald to be declared invalid. Sobeys was joined by Atlantic Superstore in the case, who entered by seeking intervener status.

Sobeys felt that the law was unjust since it permitted competitors such as Pete's Frootique in Bedford to open Sundays. Pete's Frootique had taken the provincial government to court seven years earlier and won the right to open on Sundays with its separate operating divisions, thus it was "grandfathered" in the new regulations announced by Premier MacDonald.

On October 4, 2006, the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia ruled that the Government of Nova Scotia had over-stepped its authority by forcing the supermarkets to close. In response, Premier Rodney MacDonald announced that effective Sunday, October 8, Sunday shopping would be an unrestricted option open to all retail stores, and can be open on all holidays except Remembrance Day, for which there was a separate provincial law forcing all businesses to close. Since then, Sunday shopping has been adopted throughout the province.


Ontario
Retail Business Holidays Act (1990) of Ontario originally prohibited most stores from opening on Sundays. However, there were many exceptions to this rules (for example, gas stations, convenience stores, tourist areas). Many store owners who opposed the law decided to open their stores on Sundays, knowing the fact that they were breaking the law.

In June 1990, Ontario Supreme Court found that Retail Business Holidays Act unconstitutional. As a result, Ontario had nine months of open-wide Sunday shopping, until Ontario Court of Appeal's reversal of the decision in March 1991.

However, public opposition to Sunday closing continued to rise. Bowing to public pressure, the Rae government passed the legislation in June 1992, to permit Sunday shopping in Ontario.


Other Canadian Provinces
Several other provinces have restrictions of some degree on Sunday shopping: in Prince Edward Island, it is only permitted after 12PM from the Sunday before Victoria Day until Christmas Eve; in Manitoba it requires municipal approval and it is only permitted from 12PM to 6PM each Sunday; and in New Brunswick the decisions require dual approval from municipal and provincial officials (although that is in the process of being changed), otherwise it is only permitted from August to the First Sunday in January. Some cities (such as Saint John and Fredericton) restrict Sunday hours to 12PM to 5PM. In the 1990s, Quebec allowed wide-open shopping from 8AM until 5PM; some stores (mainly supermarkets) could remain open later than 5PM, but they could not have more than four employees on staff after 5PM. The law was changed to allow supermarkets to remain open until 8PM with an unlimited number of employees. Other provinces allow wide-open shopping all day on most Sundays (except when it falls on a holiday or when objected by municipalities).


Croatia
Roman Catholic Church and some other minor organizations tried to influence the Croatian Government in order for Sunday shopping to be banned. Although it had worked for some time Croatian Constitutional Court declared it to be unconstitutional, and on April 28, 2004 issued a decision to make Sunday shopping legal. The Church admitted defeat in the battle over closing shops on Sundays. However, on July 15, 2008, the Parliament of Croatia, under pressure from the Catholic Church, passed a law banning Sunday shopping effective January 1, 2009. The law, however, allows Sunday shopping during the Christmas season and the summer.


Germany
In Germany, opening hours have long been restricted through the Ladenschlussgesetz. The 1956 law required shops to close for the weekend at 2 p.m. on a Saturday and 6:30 p.m. on weeknights, with opening until 6 p.m. on the first Saturday of the month, in what was known as the Langer Samstag, or "long Saturday". The law was changed, in the face of strong resistance from labour unions, to allow langer Donnerstag ("long Thursday") until 8:30 p.m. in 1988, and in 1996 opening times were extended to 8 p.m. from Monday to Friday and 4 p.m. on Saturday; this was extended to 8 p.m. on Saturday in 2004.

In 2004, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled against lifting restrictions on Sunday opening, which is still confined to some small bakeries and convenience stores inside railway stations and airports. However, in 2006, the responsibility for opening hours was transferred to the state governments instead of the federal government, leading to an end to regulated Monday-Saturday opening hours in several states, such as Berlin. However, there is still strong resistance to Sunday shopping from churches and politicians. The leadership of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has expressed an interest in allowing Sunday shopping.