Individual and Group Rights - Constitutions

Constitutions

In the United States, the Constitution outlines individual rights within the Bill of Rights. In Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms serves the same function. One of the key differences between the two documents is that some rights in the Canadian Charter can be overridden by governments if they explicitly do so according to Section 33 of the Charter. In practice, the Quebec government used the provision frequently in the early 1980s as a protest, and since then to maintain a ban on non-French public signs for five years. The government of Saskatchewan has used it for back-to-work legislation, and the government of Alberta sought to use it to define marriage as strictly heterosexual. In contrast, in the United States, no such override exists even in theory; even a constitutional amendment could not remove these rights entirely, as they are considered inalienable under the natural rights principles the Constitution is founded upon.