Charter Of Rights And Freedoms

1293 Words6 Pages

In the protection of human rights, one of the most significant advancements in Canada is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter was entrenched in the Canadian Constitution under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau and it was a part of a larger reform that patriated our Constitution in 1982. A constitution is a set of fundamental rules creating, regulating, and limiting the basic powers of the government and Canada’s charter guarantees the rights and freedoms that are essential in a free and democratic society. Most importantly, the term entrenchment means that the Charter can only be revised through a series of steps that requires substantial agreement from both federal and provincial governments. In this paper, …show more content…

Arguments that support this claim would be: judiciary is not a democratic institution; it does not have any democratic accountability, the idea that elected members of government are only effective in improving the lives of Canadians and that advancement in law comes mainly from legislative power, and the composition of judiciary power is problematic- a small, successful group of middle-aged lawyers are ultimately given the power to decide what our rights are as a country. The idea of democracy is about inclusivity and everyone has a vote yet the belief of entrenching a charter of rights into a constitution violates democracy is because a small group of elected representatives make decisions for us. As well, these elected representatives are appointed within the judicial government. Judicial power entails arbitrating disputes under laws. In simpler terms, this means that it is the authority vested in courts and judges to hear and decide cases, and to come to a decision when disputes arise. This is one of the arguments I proposed as to why entrenchment is a violation of democracy. Some believe that judges are given too much power when settling disputes and within the scope of democracy, it should not be one person making the decisions, but several. One judge may have different values and beliefs from the rest of society and …show more content…

The world is constantly changing and how willing we are to change with it is a good indication of true democracy. To entrench is to establish something so firmly that change is very difficult or unlikely and to entrench a document like the charter of rights into the constitution is negating the integral belief of democracy being free and open to everyone. Which can also be why some people believe that entrenchment is a violation to