ARTICLE · 01 MAY 2012

Happy Anniversary Charter Of Rights And Freedoms

Dentons Canada LLP

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Whatever you may think of the patriation of Canada’s Constitution and the the "Charter of Rights and Freedoms", it marked a milestone in Canada’s legal history.

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Whatever you may think of the patriation of Canada's Constitution and the the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it marked a milestone in Canada's legal history. In honour of the 30th Anniversary of the Charter here are excerpts from three Supreme Court of Canada decisions relating to the protection of privacy and the Charter. As the blog posts on this site attest, we continue to struggle with these issues.

R. v. O'Connor

In a case involving the non-disclosure of alleged victim of sexual abuse's entire medical, counseling and school records, Justice L'Heureux-Dubé held (at para 119):

The essence of privacy, however, is that once invaded, it can seldom be regained. For this reason, it is all the more important for reasonable expectations of privacy to be protected at the point of disclosure. As La Forest J. observed [...]:

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