The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law in Canada. It outlines Canada's system of government and the civil and human rights of those who are citizens of Canada and non-citizens in Canada. Its contents are an amalgamation of various codified acts, treaties between the Crown and indigenous peoples, uncodified traditions and conventions. Canada is one of the oldest constitutional democracies in the world.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, often simply referred to as the Charter in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all areas and levels of the government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The Charter was signed into law by Queen Elizabeth II of Canada on April 17, 1982, along with the rest of the Act.
The Implied Bill of Rights is a judicial theory in Canadian jurisprudence that recognizes that certain basic principles are underlying the Constitution of Canada.
The Manitoba Schools Question(French: La question des écoles du Manitoba) was a political crisis in the Canadian Province of Manitoba that occurred late in the 19th century, involving publicly funded separate schools for Roman Catholics and Protestants. The crisis eventually spread to the national level, becoming one of the key issues in the federal election of 1896 and resulted in the defeat of the Conservative government, which had been in power for most of the previous thirty years. Because of the close linkage at that time between religion and language, the Schools Question raised the deeper question whether French would survive as a language or a culture in Western Canada.
The Constitution Act, 1982 is a part of the Constitution of Canada. The Act was introduced as part of Canada's process of patriating the constitution, introducing several amendments to the British North America Act, 1867, including re-naming it the Constitution Act, 1867. In addition to patriating the Constitution, the Constitution Act, 1982 enacted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms; guaranteed rights of the Aboriginal peoples of Canada; provided for future constitutional conferences; and set out the procedures for amending the Constitution in the future.
The court system of Canada forms the judicial branch of government, formally known as "The Queen on the Bench", which interprets the law and is made up of many courts differing in levels of legal superiority and separated by jurisdiction. Some of the courts are federal in nature, while others are provincial or territorial.
The official languages of Canada are English and French, which "have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada," according to Canada's constitution. "Official bilingualism" is the term used in Canada to collectively describe the policies, constitutional provisions, and laws that ensure legal equality of English and French in the Parliament and courts of Canada, protect the linguistic rights of English and French-speaking minorities in different provinces, and ensure a level of government services in both languages across Canada.
Section 16 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the first of several sections of the Constitution dealing with Canada's two official languages, English and French. Section 16 declares that English and French are the official languages of Canada and of the province of New Brunswick.
Edwards v Canada (AG)—also known as the Persons Case—is a famous Canadian constitutional case that decided in 1928 that women were eligible to sit in the Senate of Canada. The legal case, put forward by the Government of Canada on the lobbying of a group of women known as the Famous Five, began as a reference case in the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that women were not "qualified persons" and thus ineligible to sit in the Senate. The case then went to the Judicial Committee of the Imperial Privy Council, at that time the court of last resort for Canada within the British Empire and Commonwealth. The Judicial Committee overturned the Supreme Court's decision.
Canadian constitutional law is the area of Canadian law relating to the interpretation and application of the Constitution of Canada by the courts. All laws of Canada, both provincial and federal, must conform to the Constitution and any laws inconsistent with the Constitution have no force or effect.
Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Constitution of Canada that guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside Quebec, and, to a lesser extent, English-speaking minorities in Quebec. The section may be particularly notable, in that some scholars believe that section 23 "was the only part of the Charter with which Pierre Trudeau was truly concerned." Trudeau was the prime minister who fought for the inclusion of the Charter of Rights in the Constitution of Canada in 1982.
British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, [2005] 2 S.C.R. 473, 2005 SCC 49, is a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada where the Court found that the provincial Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act, which allowed the government to sue tobacco companies, was constitutionally valid. Imperial Tobacco Canada is an indirect subsidiary of British American Tobacco.
Section 17 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the provisions of the Charter that addresses rights relating to Canada's two official languages, English and French. While the section 17 right to use either language within the Parliament of Canada repeats a right already anchored in section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 17 also guarantees the right to use both languages in the legislature of New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province under section 16 of the Charter.
Section 19 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the provisions of the Constitution of Canada that addresses rights relating to Canada's two official languages, English and French. Like section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 19 allows anyone to speak English or French in federal courts. However, only section 133 extends these rights to Quebec courts, while section 19 extends these rights to courts in New Brunswick. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province under section 16 of the Charter.
Because the country contains two major language groups and numerous other linguistic minorities, in Canada official languages policy has always been an important and high-profile area of public policy.
The equal authenticity rule is a rule of judicial interpretation developed by Canadian courts as a way of interpreting laws which are written in two parallel texts in English and French. The constitution of Canada requires that both versions of each Canadian law be treated as equally authoritative, which can result in problems when the English and French versions do not say exactly the same thing. The equal authenticity rule is derived from section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, which states, inter alia, "The Acts of the Parliament of Canada and the Legislature of Quebec shall be printed and published in both those Languages [i.e. both English and French]."
The remedies available in a Singapore constitutional claim are the prerogative orders – quashing, prohibiting and mandatory orders, and the order for review of detention – and the declaration. As the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore is the supreme law of Singapore, the High Court can hold any law enacted by Parliament, subsidiary legislation issued by a minister, or rules derived from the common law, as well as acts and decisions of public authorities, that are inconsistent with the Constitution to be void. Mandatory orders have the effect of directing authorities to take certain actions, prohibiting orders forbid them from acting, and quashing orders invalidate their acts or decisions. An order for review of detention is sought to direct a party responsible for detaining a person to produce the detainee before the High Court so that the legality of the detention can be established.
Reference Re Assisted Human Reproduction Act is an appeal from the Quebec Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada on a reference question posed as to the constitutional validity of the Assisted Human Reproduction Act that had been passed by the Parliament of Canada.
The Preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 provides:
Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom:
And whereas such a Union would conduce to the Welfare of the Provinces and promote the Interests of the British Empire:
And whereas on the Establishment of the Union by Authority of Parliament it is expedient, not only that the Constitution of the Legislative Authority in the Dominion be provided for, but also that the Nature of the Executive Government therein be declared:
And whereas it is expedient that Provision be made for the eventual Admission into the Union of other Parts of British North America:
