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By Lauren
Even though Canada is no longer apart of England, Canada still resorts back to using some of Britain's ways of the law system, called Common Law. Common Law is a collection or very old understandings, that helps explain lots of important legal aspects.
Pretty much the opposite kind of law system would be the Civil Law system. France and Spain have a very precise tradition of writing specific laws. In the civil tradition, judges figure out what laws mean, in a strict, literal way, and can only be considered under a certain case. Quebec still uses the civil law tradition.
Canada soon after gaining independence, did not want another war, especially a civil war, so the government decided it was best if they gave the citizens nearly no rights. Canadian law worked according to a rule called parliamentary supremacy, around 1931-1982. The highest roles, and honor, was the Canadian Parliament, when you were to decide what was legal or what wasn't.
The Canadian Government realized they were controlling the people too much, and gave them a chance to become more part of the decisions. Parliament couldn't pass any laws that were against them.
More recently, Canada gave more rights to the citizens, like being able to go to court with the government. Parliament no longer tries to pass laws that threaten certain rights. If this where to happen citizens can take government to court.
Criminal law are laws explaining the bigger, badder types of crime. In general, these laws make, theft, murder, kidnapping, assault, and fraud, illegal. If someone were to do these things, it would be called criminal offence. Criminal offence usually has the biggest sentence, like, life in jail.
Federal laws can be passed by several appointed authorities. Canada’s federal laws when broken are almost never punishable by going to prison. Punishments usually are just being fined, or doing some community service work.
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