Constitutional Act Of 1982 Essay

The Constitution Act of 1982 was exceedingly important in reshaping Canada’s constitutional arrangements. It consists of seven parts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Aboriginal Rights, and Constitutional Amendment Rights. The Act codified and affirmed common-law rights based on centuries of British judicial precedent and statutes. It served as a solid foundation for the judiciary’s reviewing of legislative and executive actions, and allowed Canada to change its constitution without the approval of the British Parliament. Most importantly, the Act finally put an end to the Canadian parliamentary supremacy that was extant before the Act was entrenched, which granted the legislative branch the utmost sovereignty over all

This part is famous because for the first time in the Canada’s history, people’s civil liberties were directly protected by the constitution. Before the charter, civil liberties were on shaky ground because they had to be explicitly legislated and could be repealed at any time. In 1960, the Canadian Bill of Rights attempted to protect Canadian’s liberties by discouraging future parliaments from enacting laws that violated people’s rights. However, since the Bill of Rights was only a federal statute, it had no effect on provincial laws, so its efficacy was often questioned. Moreover, because the Bill of Rights was not a constitutional amendment, it was easy to change and did not explicitly amend any conflicting statutes. When called to resolve these conflicts, the courts usually relied on the Parliament in order to minimize the potential ambiguity of a proceeding law as a result of repealing or amending any laws. In turn, Parliament could interpret the Bill of Rights narrowly and infringe on our fundamental rights. In fact, the scope of the Bill of Rights is so limited that the courts only ever nullified a contradictory law once in the famous R. v. Drybones case (1969). In this case, the Supreme Court ruled section 94(b), which prohibited Aboriginals from being intoxicated off reserves was inoperative because this section was deemed to contravene the section 1(b), equality before law clause, of the Bill of Rights. With the exception of this case, however, no other federal law was shut down (Questions our judicial review system). The Constitution Act of 1982 was imperative in addressing the above concerns with the Canadian Bill of Rights, since it is a part of the constitution that provides solid, expansive grounds to the protection of individual rights. This was received with both excitement and trepidation. According to the Constitution Act of 1982, our Charter of Rights and