How the Charter Works

Structure of the Charter §

• The charter outlines all rights and freedoms accessible to citizens and non-citizens in Canada.
• The charter is divided into 8 categories based on the type of right or freedom.
• Legal theorists believe that the Charter helped define three important ethical expectations of Canada:
  • Defines a standard of living
  • Creates a quality of life
  • Allows for the opportunity to live freely.
• If a government or it’s agencies violates the charter in any way, persons can use Section 24 to challenge the government in court.
  • Section 24 is known as Enforcement.

Section 1 - Guarantee of Rights §

• Explains how the majority of the charter works.
• Grants a 100% guarantee that you have rights within it.
• However, those rights can be limited or infringed if demonstrably or reasonably justified.

Summary §

You have access to all of the rights in the charter, and they will only be taken away when it is reasonable that they should be taken away. ALTERNATIVELY If you feel like your rights were infringed in a scenario with the government, the courts will be used to determine if it was reasonable or justified.

What is being “Reasonable”? §

In law, the term reasonable refers to the idea of having thorough, fair, and sensible judgement. This term entails the acts of being just, rational, appropriate, ordinary, or usual in the circumstances.

Section 2 - Fundamental Freedoms §

• Understood as rights so basic and essential to the quality of life that they can only be infringed upon by government in the most dire of circumstances, or when they threaten the fundamental freedoms of others.
• Contains four subsections:
  • Freedom of conscience and religion.
  • Freedom of thought, belief, and expression.
  • Freedom of peaceful assembly.
  • Freedom of association.

Section 3-5 - Democratic Rights §

• These sections set out the rights concerning the Canadian political process and the exercise of democracy for Canadian citizens.
• Under these sections:
  • Certain citizens have the right to vote.
  • A person has the right to run for political office.
  • Elections must be called every 5 years at maximum.
  • Government must sit in parliament at least once every 12 months.

Section 6 - Mobility Rights §

• Grants Canadian citizens the opportunity to move freely throughout the country, and to leave the country for travel, leisure, or business.
• Mobility rights particularly aid people who are employed in another province or nation.
• Also has some relations to Child Support in a separation of parents.

Section 7-14 - Legal Rights §

• Legal rights refer to the ways in which persons in Canada are protected in encounters with the justice system.
• These sections in the charter are some of the most complex and circumstantial.
• They provide the following protections:
  • To life, liberty, and security of the person, and to not be deprived of these except under special circumstances. (Sec 7)
  • To be secure against unreasonable search and seizure. (Sec 8)
  • To not be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. (Sec 9)
  • To retain and instruct a lawyer to represent you in justice proceedings. (Sec 10)
  • To have a trial within a reasonable time period. (Sec 11b)
  • To be innocent until proven guilty. (Sec 11d)
  • To not be subjected to any cruel or unusual treatment or punishment. (Sec 12)

Section 15 - Equality Rights §

• Canadians have a right not to be discriminated against by the government or government agents based on a set of grounds that relate to being members of certain communities and social identity groups.
• There are the original groups included in this section (enumerated grounds), and groups added by the courts (analogous grounds).

Enumerated Grounds §

• Race
• National / Ethnic Origin
• Colour
• Religion
• Sex
• Age
• Mental / Physical Ability

Analogous Grounds §

Currently includes

• Sexual Orientation
• Marital Status
• Citizenship
• Aboriginality-Residence

Section 15-2 §

Deals with providing equity. It is not discrimination to remove somebody from a typical scenario if it is demonstrably justified that they may need extra in a special program.

Section 16-23 - Language Rights §

Sections 16-22 - Language Rights §

• These sections guarantee the use of both English and French in federal government institutions and set out special provisions relating to the use of both official languages in New Brunswick, Canada’s only officially bilingual province.

Section 23 - Minority Language Education Rights §

• Provides a right for speakers of either official language to have their children receive primary and secondary instruction in that language, even if they are a linguistic minority in their community.

Section 24 - Enforcement §

• Provides individuals or groups which have had their Charter rights infringed access to a possible solution for the unreasonable infringement.
• Section 24 is divided into 2 subsections:
  • Allows people to use the courts if they feel their rights were infringed
  • Deals with the rules regarding illegally obtained evidence used during trials.
• If laws are found to violate the charter, they are called unconstitutional.
• Under Section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, if a law is found to be unconstitutional, “it has no force or effect”.