Arthur Peltomaa

Understanding Unconstitutionality How a Country Lost Its Way Arthur Peltomaa

Canadian courts routinely purport to confer temporary validity on laws which have already been adjudged unconstitutional. They do so pragmatically under guise of a self-invented power to deem the law to be what it is not. This has resulted, among other things, in the prosecution and conviction of persons under unconstitutional statutory provisions and the exaction by governments of illegal taxes. No legally coherent explanation has ever been provided for the existence of these remarkable powers. Inevitably, reliance is placed on the Supreme Court of Canada's much-celebrated - though widely misunderstood - decision in the 1985 Manitoba Language Rights case, where the court deemed an entire body of unconstitutional and invalid legislation to be temporarily valid and enforceable. Courts in other common law jurisdictions have sometimes flirted with the Canadian approach, but generally they have refused to recognize invalid law as valid. They have remained faithful to the rule of law. Canadian jurisprudence on the process and effects of constitutional invalidation is a veritable quagmire of incoherence, ambiguity, and contradiction. It is well past time to establish a principle-based order and structure in this embarrassingly muddled area of the law.