Preface

• Author: Hamish Stewart
• Profession: Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
• Pages: 17-19

PREFACE

Some years ago, at the end of a class on the Motor Vehicle Reference,1 a

student asked me, “What are the principles of fund amental justice?” In

response, I quoted Lamer J’s holding that t hese principles are the “basic

tenets of our legal system” that lie “in the inherent domain of the judi-

ciary as g uardians of the justice system”2 and defended his justif‌ication

for judicial review under the Charter.3 The student was not in the least

satisf‌ied. “Yes, I understand all that,” he continued, “but what are the

principles of fundamental justice?” What he wanted was not only a

general description of the principles, or a methodology for determin ing

what they were, but a specif‌ication of the precise legal norms that the

Supreme Court of Canada had identif‌ied as worthy of constitutional

status under section 7. This book is a belated attempt to answer the

student’s question. I discuss the place of section 7 in the constitutional

order (Chapter 1) and I give an account of the Court’s method for decid-

ing whether a particula r legal principle is so fundamental that it merits

recognition under section 7 (Chapter 2). I go on to state, as clearly and

positively as the caselaw permits, the conditions under which section

7 will apply to a legal dispute (Chapter 3), the legal norms that have

been recognized, or rejected, as pr inciples of fundamental justice under

section 7 (Chapters 4 and 5), and the very limited circumstances in

1 Reference re Motor Vehicle Act, [1985] 2 SCR 486.

2 Ibid at 503.

3 Ibid at 495–500.

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