The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights
entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. It forms the first part of
the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter is intended to protect certain
political and civil rights of people in Canada from the policies and
actions of all levels of government. It is also supposed to unify
Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The
Charter was preceded by the Canadian Bill of Rights, which was
introduced by the government of John Diefenbaker in 1960. However, the
Bill of Rights was only a federal statute, rather than a
constitutional document, and therefore limited in scope and easily
amendable. Hence, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's government enacted
the Charter in 1982. One of the most notable effects of the adoption
of the Charter was to greatly expand the scope of judicial review. The
Court system of Canada, when confronted with violations of Charter
rights, have struck down unconstitutional statutes or parts of
statutes. However, the Charter granted new powers to the courts to
enforce more creative remedies and to exclude more evidence in trials.
As a result, the Charter has attracted both passionate support from
liberals and criticisms by opponents of increased judicial power.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1870:
Tower Subway, the world's first underground tube railway, opened in
London.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_Subway)
1903:
The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and Bulgarians in
the Ottoman Empire carried out the Ilinden Uprising.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilinden-Preobrazhenie_Uprising)
1934:
Adolf Hitler became Führer of Nazi Germany.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrer)
1990:
Iraq invaded Kuwait, triggering the Gulf War.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War)
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Wikiquote of the day:
"Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can
have." -- James Baldwin
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Baldwin)