Section 15 of the Charter provides persons with numerous key equality rights. More specifically, this section states that every individual is equal before and under the law, and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination in particular discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. This section helps ensure every individual is considered equal under Canadian law and that governments don’t discriminate against certain groups in its policies and programs.
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The Constitution is the supreme law of our country; it contains the country’s basic rules of operation and defines the powers of the federal, provincial and territorial governments. The Charter protects important freedoms and rights by limiting the ability of governments to pass laws or take measures that are discriminatory or could adversely affect human rights. This means that everyone is treated equally regardless of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability. Canadian courts are responsible for interpreting the Charter. Moreover, when a law is challenged to be in violation of the Charter, it is up to judges to collectively interpret the law in question. Their very decisions make what the law is unless the government decide to pass new laws and regulations. Having said that, individual cases change the meaning of the wording of the Charter, as the case is with the corporal punishment laws in the Criminal Code. Moreover, the judge’s interpretation of the specific areas of The Charter paves the way for how it will be applied in future cases dealing with corporal punishment. Regardless of the fact that The Charter clearly states that children are special groups in society to need be protected, it is up to the judges to interpret the wording, in doing so, concluded that assault in a beneficial way does not violate the Charter. Therefore, the Charters meaning and definition of protecting children have changed, which has and will have a drastic implications in the future. Looking at various interpretations of the Charter can determine if laws and regulations are unfair to certain vulnerable groups, such as children.
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The Charter is a vital part of our law. It provides a legal device in our Constitution that protects us from the violation of our basic human rights, thus ensuring a free and democratic society. It works in combination with other bodies of law, such as the Canadian Human Rights Act, and is the foundation of human rights in Canada. The Charter has brought changes to laws that discriminate against people because of personal characteristics or prejudices. With the Charter, Canadian society has a clearer acknowledgment of human rights and freedoms, and ways to enforce these rights. The Charter gives us tools to see that our rights and freedoms are respected by governments and laws. If a law or government action violates the Charter, we can ask a court to address this as a result the courts can strike down laws that violate the Charter. The government is guided by the Charter in making laws and statues but it’s up to the courts in applying the Charter. The Charter provides vital information to research due to the fact that every law must abide by the Charter itself, without examining legal problems in relation to the Charter, research in legal issues would be fruitless. As documents on their own, laws and regulations are useless without certain persons in power interpreting them and using them to benefit themselves and certain individuals while undermining and discriminating others. All laws and regulations can be argued to be inferred one way or the opposite in any research, but without regulations written there would be no way of ensuring our society is free and democratic. Before having researched statutes and regulations, I truly believed that they were the supreme importance in our society and they spoke for themselves, but after researching the Charter and judges interpretations of its meaning, it became clear that they have no real significance without judge’s personal evaluation in applying the Charter, or any statute.
- Government Documents
- The “Spanking” Law: Section 43 of the Criminal Code
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Canada, Law and Government Division, The “Spanking” Law: Section 43 of the Criminal Code, (Ottawa, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, 2008).
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The Criminal Code's Section 43 is very polemical because, in essence, it gives parents and teachers alike a safeguard for those times in which they may use practical force in order to discipline their children or students, respectively. Numerous people have been calling for a stop to any type of physical discipline of children in Canada, due to the heightened cognizance of the best interests of the children, as well as their rights, which would mean that Section 43 would be necessarily repealed. And yet, many others contend that minimal physical force being used for discipline is completely copacetic within certain scenarios, and that persons who partake in such discipline dispensing shouldn't be at risk for arrest due to their style of parenting.
Section. 43 is reviewed in this paper, as well as the Supreme Court of Canada's latest judicial interpretation, wherein the provision in 2004 was upheld by a plurality. The legal effects that a repeal of Section 43 would have, as well as the proposals in favour of committing said repeal, given the readiness of common-law defences, as well as Criminal Code's definition of assault. In conclusion, the research in relation to the outcomes of physical disciplining, public assessment on the abolishment of Section 43, and worldwide opinions and views on the situation are briefly analyzed.
This document is relevant to my research question in that it examines the content of Section 43, public opinion on the issue, the effects of physical punishment, and more. In order to find out whether or not the Criminal Code's Section 43 enables legalized assault on children, I will be analyzing the information within the paper, as well as comparing and contrasting its key elements with my aforementioned research question. In doing this, I am confident that my reader will understand the issue, and contemplate the various different positions, opinions, and facts therein, thus hopefully developing or solidifying their own stance on the topic.
