加拿大家园论坛

权利并不是绝对的

原文链接:https://forum.iask.ca/threads/931919/

哈法 : 2022-02-23#1
渥太华大学宪法学教授在环球邮报发表的以“Protesters need to understand: Canada’s Charter is not the U.S. Bill of Rights”的文章:

What are we to make of the fact that Canadian protesters in front of Parliament and before the courts are demanding their U.S. constitutional rights?

Supporters of arrested Ottawa truckers complained on Twitter that police failed to read them their “Miranda rights.” And Dwayne Lich, husband of arrested convoy leader Tamara Lich, told the judge at his wife’s bail hearing that he was relying on his “First Amendment rights.”

Clearly, people are confused. Canada and the U.S. may be close allies, with the longest undefended border in the world, but we are entirely separate countries with completely different legal systems.

So let’s talk about our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yes, it constitutionalizes individual rights. But it also permits governments to justify limits on those rights, where doing so will protect and promote competing individual and collective interests. Section 1 of the Charter states that rights are subject to “reasonable limits” that are “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

In other words, rights are not absolute. In complex and increasingly diverse societies such as ours, the exercise of individual rights and freedoms must, at times, be limited. The life-threatening impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored this.

Canada’s Charter undoubtedly gives people the right to refuse unwanted vaccines. But it does not give anyone the right to put the lives and health of others at risk. The Charter may also guarantee individuals the right to disagree with or protest public health measures. But such freedoms of expression and assembly will be limited where their exercise threatens significant harm to others.

The U.S. Bill of Rights contains no equivalent to Section 1 of our Charter, and Canadians watch a lot of American police and legal dramas. This may explain why organizers and protesters at trucking blockades in Ottawa and elsewhere believe that their freedom of expression – including incessant honking, hateful speech, illegally parked trucks and indefinite occupation of city streets – is unlimited and absolute.

Many have declared they can’t be arrested for violating emergencies legislation, or for willfully ignoring local laws designed to safeguard the security, health and welfare of residents, since they are exercising Charter-protected protest rights.

They are wrong; Charter rights are not absolute. This is not exceptional: Most modern bills of rights around the world have some version of Section 1.

Critics argue that the federal Emergencies Act isn’t needed, since blockades had already been dismantled elsewhere, and because Ontario and Ottawa had already declared states of emergency to deal with downtown areas taken over by protesters.

But the false belief that Charter rights and freedoms are absolute has resulted in a mass disregard for the law on an unprecedented scale. Thousands of protesters have behaved as if they enjoyed total legal impunity. This was reinforced by the unwillingness or inability of local police and civic authorities to intervene.

This threatened not simply public health and safety, but the rule of law itself, a keystone of any democracy.

In a landmark 1987 ruling, Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Dickson wrote that the standard by which Section 1 limits must be justified is a reminder of the very purpose of the Charter: “Canadian society is to be free and democratic.”

The Emergencies Act is a product of that democratic process. Parliament and the Senate must approve its use. Any Emergencies Act measures adopted must, like any other laws in Canada, comply with the constitution.

The Charter guarantees freedom of thought and expression, security of the person, equality and other rights fundamental to a well-functioning democracy. It also allows for limits on those rights, where justified.

As the recent convoy protests demonstrate, unconstrained freedom is neither what the Charter does, nor should, guarantee.


哈法 : 2022-02-23#2
在我没看到这篇文章时,我一直认为卡车抗议者有权利和自由去表达他们的不满或是意见,但他们没有权利去影响到别人的权利和自由!我不认同有人把宪章所赋与的权利和自由临驾高于别人所享有的权利和自由之上!

qjf : 2022-02-23#3
堵路肯定不对,也违法

Rita11 : 2022-02-23#4
我以前的公司经常闹罢工。 罢工时就堵门,不让员工自由进去上班。是不是这样做是不对的?

Rita11 : 2022-02-23#5
工会应该和老板好好在家里或公园里谈谈,而不是堵住公司的大门?

哈法 : 2022-02-23#6
工会应该和老板好好在家里或公园里谈谈,而不是堵住公司的大门?
工会在罢工之前,是有几个步骤的。
1. 条件谈不成;
2. 仲裁人和双方开会调解;
3. 调解失败,工会全体会员投票决定是不是罢工;
4. 超过半数的投票同意罢工,工会发信息给资方,某年某月某日开始罢工;
5. 开始罢工,拉起罢工线,所有属于工会会员的工作,资方不准雇人来做。
6. 在罢工期间,如果工会会员到罢工的地点参加罢工,工会才会发微不足道,少的可怜的工资。

lundoneye : 2022-02-23#7
堵路肯定不对,也违法

违法的话,警察过来抓人吧?