The B. C. Court of Appeal has disapproved Federal Government‘s appeal to shut down Vancouver's supervised injection site on the city's troubled Downtown Eastside.

InSite was established in 2003 in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside under a temporary exemption from national drug laws.

The federal government appealed a previous B. C. Supreme Court ruling in favor of Insite, and on Friday morning in Vancouver, the B. C. Appeal Court confirmed the injection site's constitutional right to exist.

However, Liz Evans, the founder and executive director of the Portland Hotel Society was found to respect the decision saying,"I'm so proud of the decision that was made here this morning".

“It looks like not only have they agreed that it is our constitutional right to have Insite exist, but they've also …weighed in support of the jurisdictional issue, and that means effectively that Insite is now a provincial issue".

Former Vancouver mayor Philip Owen also welcomed the ruling and predicted similar safe-injection sites will appear in other Canadian cities.

The 85-page decision does appear to be a sure shot victory for the supporters of the site who have endured a tough time fighting a long legal battle with the federal Conservative government to keep the facility open, but one of the three judges did write a dissenting opinion.