Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - Comparisons With Other Human Rights Documents

Comparisons With Other Human Rights Documents

Some Canadian Members of Parliament saw the movement to entrench a charter as contrary to the British model of Parliamentary supremacy. Others would say that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has now limited British parliamentary power to a greater degree than the Canadian Charter limited the power of the Canadian Parliament and provincial legislatures. Hogg has speculated that the British adopted the Human Rights Act 1998, which allows the ECHR to be enforced directly in domestic courts, partly because they were inspired by the similar Canadian Charter.

The Canadian Charter bears a number of similarities to the European Convention, specifically in relation to the limitations clauses contained in the European document. Because of this similarity with European human rights law, the Supreme Court of Canada turns not only to the Constitution of the United States case law in interpreting the Charter, but also to European Court of Human Rights cases.

The core distinction between the United States Bill of Rights and Canadian Charter is the existence of the limitations and notwithstanding clauses. Canadian courts have consequently interpreted each right more expansively. However, due to the limitations clause, where a violation of a right exists, the law will not necessarily grant protection of that right. In contrast, rights under the US Bill of Rights are absolute and so a violation will not be found until there has been sufficient encroachment on those rights. The sum effect is that both constitutions provide comparable protection of many rights. Fundamental justice (in section 7 of the Canadian Charter) is therefore interpreted to include more legal protections than due process, which is its US equivalent. Freedom of expression in section 2 also has a more wide-ranging scope than the First Amendment to the United States Constitution's freedom of speech. In RWDSU v. Dolphin Delivery Ltd. (1986), the Canadian Supreme Court considered picketing of the kind the US First Amendment did not permit, as it was disruptive conduct (though there was some speech involved that the First Amendment might otherwise protect). The Supreme Court, however, ruled the picketing, including the disruptive conduct, were fully protected under section 2 of the Charter. The Court then relied on section 1 to find the injunction against the picketing was just. The limitations clause has also allowed governments to enact laws that would be considered unconstitutional in the US. The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld some of Quebec's limits on the use of English on signs and has upheld publication bans that prohibit media from mentioning the names of juvenile criminals.

Section 28 of the Charter performs a function similar to that of the unratified Equal Rights Amendment in the US. While that proposed amendment had many critics, there was no comparable opposition to the Charter's section 28. Still, Canadian feminists had to stage large protests to demonstrate support for the inclusion of the section.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has several parallels with the Canadian Charter, but in some cases the Covenant goes further with regard to rights in its text. For example, a right to legal aid has been read into section 10 of the Charter (the right to counsel), but the Covenant explicitly guarantees the accused need not pay "if he does not have sufficient means."

The Canadian Charter has little to say, explicitly at least, about economic and social rights. On this point, it stands in marked contrast with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There are some who feel economic rights ought to be read into section 7 rights to security of the person and section 15 equality rights to make the Charter similar to the Covenant. The rationale is that economic rights can relate to a decent standard of living and can help the civil rights flourish in a livable environment. Canadian courts, however, have been hesitant in this area, stating that economic rights are political questions and adding that as positive rights, economic rights are of questionable legitimacy.

The Charter itself influenced the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of South Africa. The limitations clause under section 36 of the South African law has been compared to section 1 of that Charter.