The Unbroken Supremacy of the Canadian Constitution
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.29173/alr2452Abstract
This article revives the awareness of the heritage and inheritance of section 52(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982. It exposes the pre-1982 legal basis for constitutional judicial review in Canada and the mechanics of the transition in 1982 to an express supremacy clause. This article also challenges two popular notions in Canadian constitutional law today. The first is that the addition of section 52(1) in 1982 transformed Canada from a state governed by parliamentary supremacy into a state governed by constitutional supremacy. The second is that the Canadian judiciary became the guardian of the Canadian Constitution in 1982. Contrary to conventional wisdom, 1982 was, with respect to the supremacy of the Canadian Constitution, a moment of continuity rather than a break with the past.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
For Editions following and including Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
For Editions prior to Volume 61 No. 1, the following applies.
Author(s) retain original copyright in the substantive content of the titled work, subject to the following rights that are granted indefinitely:
- Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to produce, publish, disseminate, and distribute the titled work in electronic format to online database services, including, but not limited to: LexisNexis, QuickLaw, HeinOnline, and EBSCO;
- Author(s) grant the Alberta Law Review permission to post the titled work on the Alberta Law Review website and/or related websites.
- Author(s) agree that the titled work may be used for educational or instructional purposes and/or in educational or instructional materials. The author(s) acknowledge that the titled work is subject to other such "fair dealing" provisions and applicable legislation.
- Author(s) grant a limited license to those accessing the titled work from an electronic database or an Alberta Law Review website to download the titled work onto their computer and to print a copy for their own personal, non-commercial use, subject to proper attribution.
To use the journal's content elsewhere, permission must be obtained from the author(s) and the Alberta Law Review.
