logicp_writings/new/Charter of Rights and Freedoms.md

Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Liberty has not been held to the sort of definition that Libertarians and Classical Liberals would like to see enshrined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

No? Not that you are "at liberty" ? Go off-base and enjoy yourself

You start with this idea but almost immediately we have to ask "what does it mean and what are the boundaries?". We can do the same thing with Freedom of Speech. Some are principled exceptions and some are not:

Speech Exceptions

• Speech being something more than speech
• Violating someone else's right
• Free of your violence ("I'm going to beat your head in unless you give me your wallet")
  • Threat of imminent violence
• Write false statements in newspaper that someone has cheated on their taxes
  • Defaming

Pendulum swings towards an end we don't want to see happen - a broad definition with limited precedent

Courts and supreme court in particular, as an institution over a period of time, seems to have embraced the necessity for the administrative state. They regard the administrative state and its need to manage things as legitimate. Therefore, as an inclination to interpret the words of the Charter and Constitution in light of its necessity to deal with society in a particular way to produce outcomes that are in the public interest.

With that premise, the scope is defined accordingly.

If you don't take the premise that the administrative state is always a good thing, then you may not agree.

Job of Courts

To resolve actual cases. If you have a question about interpretation of the law, you need to have a case before it will be answered.

Mootness is a situation where an actual case between parties with a problem becomes a theoretical case. A challenge to a rule and the person challenging complains because of a specific way in which it creates a problem. The rule goes away and makes the case moot - it's not real anymore, it's just a theoretical question. Cases will not generally hear those cases, but they have discretion to do so.

They also don't want to waste time hearing and deciding cases that don't matter. One example of this is the challenge to the vaccine travel mandate of the federal government which was dismissed for being moot once the rule was repealed. What that leaves us with are big questions abotu the scope of the government's power to order us around - we don't know if that was legal or not.

If the court declines to exercise its discretion to hear these cases once the rule goes away, it's possible the government will assume it has the authority and expect itself to be free to use it again.

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