Execution
In the 2001 extradition case United States v. Burns, the Supreme Court declined to decide whether capital punishment would classify in Canadian law as a cruel and unusual punishment and therefore a direct violation of section 12. They did, however, state that execution certainly "engages the underlying values of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment," noting its impossibility to correct (in cases of wrongful conviction) and its perceived "arbitrary" nature, as well as the scepticisms that it really would decrease crime rates. The Court also took into consideration that Parliament had already abolished the death penalty within Canada itself.
Read more about this topic: Section Twelve Of The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms
Famous quotes containing the word execution:
“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.”
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)
“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I am gradually drifting to the opinion that this Rebellion can only be crushed finally by either the execution of all the traitors or the abolition of slavery. Crushed, I mean, so as to remove all danger of its breaking out again in the future.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)