Amendments
The Criminal Code has been revised numerous times, including the consolidation of federal statutes that occurred during 1955 and 1985. One of the major revisions of the code occurred with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968-69, whose provisions included, among other things, the decriminalization of homosexual acts between consenting adults, the legalization of abortion, contraception and lotteries, new gun ownership restrictions as well as the authorization of breathalyzer tests on suspected drunk drivers. The Criminal Code, in its present form, is part of the 1985 consolidated statutes with further major amendments since that year.
By means of legal challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, numerous sections of the Criminal Code have been struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada as infringing on a constitutional right as defined in this 1982 constitutional document. The offending sections are usually removed altogether, or heavily qualified, when new laws are passed. In other instances, such as Section 287 regarding qualified abortions, the Canadian Parliament does not repeal (i.e. erase) the infringing section from the text of the Criminal Code and so the remaining text is simply null, void and unenforceable by the police and the criminal justice system.
Before the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the Criminal Code contained almost no specific reference to terrorism. After that event, the Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-36, the Anti-terrorism Act (S.C. 2001, c.41) which received royal assent on December 18, 2001. This statute added an entire new component to the Criminal Code. Falling between Part II and Part III is now Part II.1 - Terrorism, which contains numerous provisions regarding the financing of terrorism, the establishment of a list of terrorist entities, the freezing of property, the forfeiture of property, and participating, facilitating, instructing and harbouring of terrorism.
Read more about this topic: Criminal Code Of Canada
Famous quotes containing the word amendments:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)