Canada's Supreme Court struck down major restrictions on prostitution on Friday, including bans on brothels and street solicitation, declaring the laws unconstitutional because they violated prostitutes' safety.
The sweeping 9-0 decision will take effect in one year, inviting Parliament to try to come up with some other way to regulate the sex trade if it chooses to do so.
Prostitution is technically legal in Canada but most related activities have been illegal, including living off the avails of someone else's prostitution. The court found these prohibitions were overly broad or grossly out of proportion to the law's goals.