Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, also known as the NOTWITHSTANDING CLAUSE, is one of the Constitution’s most controversial and least well understood provisions. By invoking the notwithstanding clause, the government can insulate a law from the strongest order a court can issue, which is to strike down the law because it infringes a Charter right or freedom.
MISC presents a panel discussion amongst some leading experts and commentators who have contributed to a new and important volume, collection The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms and Controversies (McGill-Queen’s University Press). Edited by Peter Biro, the collection examines the NWC from all angles, considering who should have the last word on matters of rights and justice – the legislatures or the unelected judiciary – and what balance liberal democracy requires.
Is the Notwithstanding Clause really “a dagger pointed at the heart of our fundamental freedoms”, as the late Senator Eugene Forsey warned? It depends on whether its use ousts the court’s jurisdiction to undertake judicial review of a protected law, says Peter Biro. “It is one thing, after all, for a law to operate notwithstanding its inconsistency with a Charter provision. It is another thing altogether for such an operation to occur in darkness.”
Limiting the Notwithstanding Clause . . . While consensus across philosophical, ideological and partisan lines on the merits and demerits of the NWC is unlikely, there is an increasing acceptance of the idea that the preemptive use of the NWC should not preclude…
Section 33 has no place in a liberal democracy. It ought to be repealed Peter’s article for the National Post The notwithstanding clause is a dangerous and altogether unnecessary tool…
The Greek poet, Aeschylus famously observed that in war, truth is the first casualty. Peter L. Biro FRSA argues that, in the wake of the Trump presidency and of the democratic backsliding that has been in process throughout the West, in the war on truth, the first…
A Lawyer’s Introduction to the Fall and Potential Rise of Liberal Constitutional Democracy: Peter L. Biro’s special address to Ryerson University’s Faculty of Law in its Inaugural Year
Steve Paikin speaks to the editor and contributors of the new book, “Constitutional Democracy Under Stress: A Time for Heroic Citizenship.” They discuss the fragile state of democracies around the world, the existential threats they face, and the “civic serum” needed to cure what ails them.
Listen to Peter in conversation with Royal Society of Arts CEO, Matthew Taylor, on this influential podcast on ideas, BRIDGES TO THE FUTURE, as they discuss LIBERAL DEMOCRACY’S SOCIAL COHESION DEFICIT…
Listen to Peter’s engaging conversation with Stephen Hurley on the state of western democracy, leadership, citizenship and civil society in the aftermath of COVID-19, the global protests for racial justice and the problem of democratic backsliding in liberal…
