Explanation of Arrest or Detention
Section 10(a) requires that a person who is arrested or detained must be told why. In R. v. Latimer (1997), the Supreme Court of Canada considered an argument in which a person, Robert Latimer, was told he was being "detained", but was not told he was being "arrested" and could be charged with the murder of his daughter. The Court found section 10(a) was not infringed. Section 10(a) is meant to ensure those arrested or detained are aware of the gravity of the situation. Latimer argued that since the police did not call the detention an arrest, he was not fully aware of the severity of the trouble he was in. He also claimed this was the reason why he had declined to talk to a lawyer. The Court argued the words used did not matter, but rather how the suspect can interpret the situation. Latimer could be expected to understand the seriousness of the situation since he was told he was being detained in connection with his daughter's death. The police had explicitly said the situation was serious, and had told him of rights one has when being arrested.
Read more about this topic: Section Ten Of The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms
Famous quotes containing the words explanation of, explanation, arrest and/or detention:
“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”
—Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)
“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious, automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of the watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”
—Richard Dawkins (b. 1941)
“One does not arrest Voltaire.”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)
“I would like you to understand completely, also emotionally, that I’m a political detainee and will be a political prisoner, that I have nothing now or in the future to be ashamed of in this situation. That, at bottom, I myself have in a certain sense asked for this detention and this sentence, because I’ve always refused to change my opinion, for which I would be willing to give my life and not just remain in prison. That therefore I can only be tranquil and content with myself.”
—Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937)