Section 12: Cruel and Unusual Punishment

12. Everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms indicates that cruel and unusual punishment goes against its tenets. This is section 12 of the charter that says this, and this mainly relates to the police force and other government agencies much like it. This protects the people under the charter from all forms torture from any form of law enforcement or correctional services. Like all Charter sections, this only protects you from abused by the government or their laws, not from private individuals. It also applies to all humans in Canada, not just citizens.

Now in terms of the unusual aspect of this, this means odder punishments like a strip search for no reason or other weird things are off the table. In short, for the normal citizen like you surely will be safe. You are protected from these awful things happening to you by the police. Good luck!

Section 12 also protects people from unreasonably long prison sentences, and helps keep Canadians safe from a return of capital punishment.

Smickle V The Crown: Protection Against Mandatory Minimum Sentences

A case that is really important and recent (2012) is a case that tossed gun laws into crazy times. And it involved a man by the name of Leroy Smickle. This case was huge in gun laws around 2012 and was huge for prison laws around the time! Read here for more!

'Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy concluded that sending a man to prison for three years in the case before her, even though he was found holding a loaded handgun, was unconstitutional.

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Leroy Smickle, 30, of Toronto, was caught in “adolescent preening” with a pistol and a web camera when, coincidentally, police burst into his cousin’s apartment.

“A reasonable person knowing the circumstances of this case, and the principles underlying both the Charter and the general sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code, would consider a three year sentence to be fundamentally unfair, outrageous, abhorrent and intolerable,” she wrote in her judgment released Monday.

The Criminal Code’s mandatory minimum provision violates Smickle’s Charter rights she ruled and, as such, she struck it down.'

The charter right she is refering to is of course Section 12, as this would be cruel to mister Smickle. This goes against his rights to be treated fairly and the courts saw this as it was and did what was right. Making sure nothing like this could ever happen again.

Quebec (Attorney General) v. 9147-0732 Québec inc:

Corporations Are Not Protected Like People

Another case that relates to this section is Quebec (Attorney General) v. 9147-0732 Québec inc. The main idea of this case is that the section only apply's to humans and not big corps. The text from the supreme court reads as such '9147-0732 Québec inc. was a corporation. It was found guilty of doing construction work without a licence. Quebec’s Building Act set out a minimum fine as punishment. It was fined over $30,000. The corporation said that the minimum fine was cruel and unusual punishment. It said this made the fine unconstitutional.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms sets out the rights and freedoms that Canadians have. It is part of Canada’s Constitution. Section 12 says that everyone has the right “not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.” This means certain treatments or punishments are unacceptable and not allowed.

A corporation is a “legal person.” A legal person is treated like a physical person (a human being) for some purposes under the law. It has its own “legal personality,” meaning it has its own rights and duties. For example, it can sign contracts and own property, just like a human being can.

Corporations can benefit from some Charter rights. For example, corporations are protected against “unreasonable search and seizure” under section 8. The state can’t search or take something private from a corporation without permission, unless the law specifically allows it, like when police have a warrant. Corporations also have the right to a criminal trial in a reasonable time under section 11(b). However, they don’t get the benefit of all Charter rights. Corporations don’t have a right to “life, liberty and security of the person” under section 7. They also don’t have a right not to be forced to testify under section 11(c). The question in this case was whether a corporation could be protected from cruel and unusual punishment under section 12.

The trial judge at the Court of Quebec said the fine wasn’t cruel and unusual. Anyway, he said, section 12only protects human beings, not corporations. The first appeal judge, at the Superior Court, agreed. The majority of judges at the Court of Appeal disagreed, though. They said section 12 could apply to corporations.

All the judges at the Supreme Court agreed that section 12 only protects people (that is, real, live human beings). They said it doesn’t protect corporations.'

The main takeaway from this case is that companies like these do not have human dignity whereas actual humans have that dignity that must be protected against cruel treatment. I think this case went the right way, as if big, million dollar megacorps could whine and sob and cite section 12 all the time when things did not go their way (in Canada) I think we would be in a much worse spot then we are today (Which is still rather bad).

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, s 15, Part 1 of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (UK), 1982, c 11.

Canada, S. C. of. (2020, November 5). Supreme Court of Canada - 38613. Retrieved April 8, 2022, from https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2020/38613-eng.aspx