Charter of Canadian law

When Article 1 of the Charter came into effect on April 17th, 1985, Canada's human rights legislation turned a new page. This does not mean that many new rights were born, but that their status in the court was established.

The Charter contains several different types of rights. Articles 2 to 5 list the democratic rights. Many of them were "unwritten" parts of the Canadian Constitution before that. These include the guarantee of elections and democratic rule, freedom of speech, assembly and publication. Articles 7 to 15 are mainly legal rights, such as the defendant's innocence before conviction, the right to a speedy trial and the right to personal protection. Articles 16 to 23 clarify language rights.

As the Charter is a part of the Constitution, it is superior to other laws and regulations, and many rights that have been accepted before are now elevated to the status of the Charter. This practice has two major influences, that is, "the politicalization of politics and the politicization of judicature".

On the one hand, legislators at all levels must make every effort to ensure that their legislation does not conflict with the Charter. The National Assembly and the Provincial Legislative Council have cancelled some past legislation to avoid being cancelled by the court. When legislating, they clearly understand the power and mood of the court, so they must follow the rules. Politicians must now be accountable to both the people and the judiciary.

On the other hand, the courts have become more active. The legal profession has begun to call for testing the Charter with cases, thus giving a new definition to the role of courts in interpreting legislation. Some judges in lower courts have gone a long way in this respect. Moreover, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that it has the right to review every act of the government, including the functions of the cabinet. So far, the Charter has overturned the law of closing business on Sundays, guaranteed the language rights of Quebec, abolished the clause of "the defendant's guilt assumption" (which stipulates that the defendant must prove his innocence), and strictly restricted the police's search, arrest and interrogation.

In p>1989, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of a law student in British Columbia. Prior to this, he was refused admission to the law department because he was not a Canadian citizen. In the judgment, the court held that although the Charter does not explicitly state that nationality is not allowed as a ground of discrimination, the relevant provisions allow for a wide interpretation. Therefore, the court ruled that discrimination based on nationality is similar to other discrimination and must be prohibited.

In August of the same year, the issue of induced abortion appeared in court again. Nineteen months before that, Canada's abortion law had just been abolished by Morgan Taylor's judgment. In this judgment, the Quebec High Court overturned the original court decision prohibiting Santar Dege from carrying out induced abortion, and the lawsuit was extremely sensational at that time.

Santar decided to have an abortion because she broke up with her good boyfriend, Chuanbolei. Her ex-boyfriend thought he was also related to the fetus, so he asked the court to ban her from induced abortion and won the first trial.

The results of the preliminary examination have aroused great dissatisfaction from women's groups, some people in favor of induced abortion and legal experts. This lawsuit has become a legal contest between the two camps, those in favor of the legalization of abortion and those against it.

The decision of Quebec High Court finally won the favor camp. Prior to this, in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada, the reason why the abortion clause in the Criminal Code was invalidated was that it interfered with the rights of "life, freedom and personal safety" protected in the Charter. Up to now, the results of most lawsuits related to the Charter have protected individuals from discrimination or arbitrariness by state power. But some experts worry that this trend may go too far in the future. They believe that the Charter should protect both individual and collective rights, and different interpretations may reduce collective rights.

They argue that some individuals want to protect their freedom of speech, so they refuse to financially support the actions of the majority who disagree with them, which may endanger the trade union movement. Others have suggested that a large company as a legal person may also require the rights of speech, property, assembly and political party procedures that were originally granted only to natural persons. This will make it extremely difficult for the government to supervise and regulate their activities.