The Charter of Rights and Civil Liberties PDF

Running Head: THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES
The Charter of Rights and Civil Liberties
Name
Institution

THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES 2
The Charter of Rights and Civil Liberties
Topic 6
Introduction
Since it was created in 1875, Canada’s Supreme Court being the most crucial governing
institutions has spent mainstream of its account in the darkness. During the last four decades has
this institution attracted huge media coverage or continued consideration by political researchers.
The predominance of this significance was created by the introduction of the Charter of Rights
that transformed the role of Supreme Court (McIntyre & Sanda, 2006). It commonly considered
that before the enactment of the Charter of Rights in 1982, judges interpreted the law, and did
not take it upon themselves to make the law. Therefore, it is apparent that Charter of Rights
ushered in a new era of law-making in Canada by the judicial system. The Charter has actually
transformed the Canada’s political landscape, revolutionizing viewpoints on the nature of law
and political debate (Manfredi, 2007). In fact, the Charter has allowed the judges to make
important decisions regarding policy issues that could have been addressed the Constitution only.
The Charter has permanently transformed t6he manner in which policy proposals make their way
to the Cabinet through the power of judges and where new procedures are designed ensure
effective policy process. Hence, the charter has aspects of both permanence plus change with the
country’s policy issues. The Charter embodies the zenith of the tendency from that of Britain
tradition of an “unrecorded constitution” as a preferred technique of safeguarding basic rights
and freedoms of Canadians (Baar, 2006).
Thesis

THE CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES 3
The Charter of Rights has entrenched the role of judges as guardians and interpreters of
the rights of the Canadians through policy decisions that have resolved many policy questions
that could have not been addressed by the legal frameworks in the country. This thesis statement
supports Dwight Newman analysis that the Charter of Rights has fashioned a predictable
potential of Canadian judges undertaking decisions on different policy questions, where it will
form the argument of the paper.
Background
Canada was a free, as well as democratic nation before the enactment of the Charter of
Rights, committed to elements like equality, freedom of expression, along with doctrines of
fundamental justice. Since 1982, the Charter of Rights has fashioned a social along with legal
insurgency in Canada growing the freedoms and rights of different groups and promoting
judicial scrutiny. The primary changes availed by the Charter of Rights was the rights along with
freedoms were given constitutional status where judges were given the power to reject laws,
which violated these rights and freedoms (Feldman, 2005). In 1982, there was little rationale to
believe this change could be impetus because the judiciary was considered as comparatively
conservative institution, cautious, and incremental in its strategy to the law. Nonetheless, many
thing things have changed during the primary 30 years of the Charter of Rights. Many laws have
been struck down and several changed significantly, often new statutory interpretation plus
remedial techniques the courts have created. These efforts have been possible through the
Charter of Rights where judges have played a leading role in making sure policy issues are
addressed through the appropriate mechanisms and reject those laws that seem to undermine the
rights and freedom of the citizens through policy-making process (Manfredi, 2007). The

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influence of the Charter of Rights on legal actions has been theatrical in words plus actions.
Judges in Canada have started to slice out a brave novel constitutional jurisprudence. Thus, the
judges in Canada has emphasized that the legitimate position of the Charter of Rights
qualitatively differentiates it from the constitutional Bill of Rights of 1960.
Discussion and Analysis
The Charter of Rights has already yielded discernible impact on many areas of public
policy in Canada through the role of judges in expanding the rights and freedoms of Canadians.
The most affected field by the Charter is the criminal law enforcement. It is believed that
currently, 74% of all Charter of Rights lawsuits has entailed criminal based on the law
enforcement. Citizens have enjoyed around 31% in these cases that is marginally greater than
27% success in noncriminal law litigations in Canada (Epstein, Andrew, Kevin, & Segal, 2007).
The most apparent Charter of Rights impact on a solitary part of criminal rule has been the fight
not in favor of impaired driving. Thus, 11% of all the Charter of Rights litigations have entailed
defies to “breathalyzer” tests in addition to “check stop” works. The majority of these provoke
part10 (b) of the Charter of Rights, which is the right to be conversant of the right to attorney on
arrest for custody (Cameron, 2006). Classically, these cases claim that if a particular police
officer does not provide advice to the driver of his right to a lawyer before being requested to
offer a breath test, then it means that the proof should be precluded from trial. Through the
efforts of the judges founded on the provisions of the Charter of Rights, the court approved this
premise in the instance of Therens vs. The Queen. This resulted in dropping all the appeals since
there were around 19,000 cases on “breathalyzer” offences waiting in Alberta only (Posner,
2008).