Torture
Torture is inherently cruel and unusual under section 12. As the Supreme Court wrote in Suresh v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) (2002), torture is "so inherently repugnant that it could never be an appropriate punishment, however egregious the offence." The Court noted that the "prospect of torture induces fear and its consequences may be devastating, irreversible, indeed, fatal." This view of torture goes back to R. v. Smith, in which Justice Lamer said that "some punishments or treatments will always be grossly disproportionate and will always outrage our standards of decency: for example, the infliction of corporal punishment."
In addition to violating section 12, in Suresh it was found that torture violates rights to liberty and security of person under section 7, and shocks the conscience. Therefore, Canada may not extradite people to countries where they may face torture.
Read more about this topic: Section Twelve Of The Canadian Charter Of Rights And Freedoms
Famous quotes containing the word torture:
“I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Suffering is by no means a privilege, a sign of nobility, a reminder of God. Suffering is a fierce, bestial thing, commonplace, uncalled for, natural as air. It is intangible; no one can grasp it or fight against it; it dwells in time—is the same thing as time; if it comes in fits and starts, that is only so as to leave the sufferer more defenseless during the moments that follow, those long moments when one relives the last bout of torture and waits for the next.”
—Cesare Pavese (1908–1950)
“He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)