Preface to the second edition

• Author: Hamish Stewart
• Pages: 15-16

xv

PREFACE

to the Second Edition

About a year after the appearance of the f‌irst edition of this treatise,

the Supreme Court of Canada released its decision in Canada (Attor-

ney General) v Bedford,1 and about a year after that came Carte r v Can-

ada.2 In these decisions, the Court rev isited issues t hat it had dealt

with under section 7 of the Charter some decades before, but reached

startlingly different results. Provisions of the Criminal Code relat ing to

sex work and to physician-assisted dy ing that had prev iously survived

Charter scrutiny were now, the Court unanimously said, unconstitu-

tional because they affected the life, libert y, and security of persons

who were trying to comply with t he law in a manner that did not com-

ply with the principles of fundamental justice. These decisions were

surprising for several reasons: the Court’s treatment of its own preced-

ents; its unanimity; its receptiveness to the possibility of justif ying a

violation of section 7 under section 1 of the Charter ; and its will ingness

to intervene quite vigorously in contested matters of social policy. By

themselves, these two decisions required a new edition of this treatise;

but other aspects of section 7 law have continued to develop as well. In

this revised edition, I have tried to t ake into account developments to

the end of July 2018.

In preparing the revision, I have incurred many debts of gratitude.

First and foremost, I thank James Schneider (JD, University of Toronto,

1 Canada (Attor ney General) v Bedford, 2013 SCC 72.

2 Carter v Canada (Attorney General), 2015 SCC 5.