Wednesday 12 May 2010 at 1230
Public Law Discussion Group
The Canadian ‘Implied Bill of Rights’ and Freedom of Expression under English Common Law
Speaker: Mr Han-ru Zhou, McGill University and Worcester College, Oxford
Venue: Oxford Law Faculty Law Senior Common Room
The Constitution Act 1867 which federally united Canada into one Dominion did not expressly include a bill of rights. Canada’s constitutional bill of rights, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, would only be adopted more than a hundred years later. Meanwhile, some Canadian judges sought to protect certain individual rights and freedoms, mainly freedom of expression, through what became known as the ‘implied bill of rights’. According to those judges, one of its main legal sources was the preamble to the 1867 Act which refers to ‘a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom’. Thus, in light of the English experience and the post-Charter developments, I revisit the implied bill of rights and discuss its implications in the current constitutional scheme.
For more information please contact: Hayley J. Hooper
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Organised by the Public Law Discussion Group
