Sep 10, 2013 8:43 PM

Thoughts on this, here is a case about a guy who is arguing with S32 of the Charter of rights and freedoms, that he is not a Govt Agent and only Govt Agents fall under Canadian law not private citizens. Please dont go off topic, stick to the topic at hand please. i will delete any comments try to steer this off course. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- What s. 32 actually does is makes it a requirement for Canadian law, and government actors to follow and respect the rights provided to Canadian residents under the Charter. The court at paras. 74-84 explains how Petrie has literally got the law backwards in a simply excellent analysis on this point:

[75] Section 32 of the Charter and the jurisprudence interpreting this section makes it clear that the Charter applies to all actions undertaken by state authorities and government agents when they interact with private citizens, meaning that private citizens who have an interaction with a government actor benefit from the rights afforded to them by the Charter during that interaction and have recourse to the courts if they believe that the government actor, and by extension the government, has breached one or more of their Charter rights. To give a concrete example: state conduct, i.e. government action, such as police investigating and arresting a private citizen must conform with Charter values and respect the Charter rights of the private citizen. Thus an individual private citizen, when investigated by the police, has the right to be secure from an unreasonable search and seizure by virtue of s. 8 of the Charter and has the right to retain counsel upon arrest or detention by virtue of s. 10(b) of the Charter.

[76] The jurisprudence interpreting s. 32 of the Charter also establishes that the Charter does not apply or govern activities between private citizens or between private citizens and corporations. Thus, where a legal dispute arises between private citizens, for example, in a divorce proceeding or interpreting the terms of a contract, the parties cannot invoke their respective Charter rights against one another.

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[79] With respect, the applicant appears to be endeavouring to turn the jurisprudence pertaining to s. 32 of the Charter on its head. If he is arguing that because he is a private citizen the Constitution, and by extension the laws of this country, only apply to government actions and agents, he is mistaken. He, too, is subject to the laws of Canada, including the CDSA. He cannot pick and choose what laws apply to him, nor can he engage in what Myers J. characterized in Porisky at para. 67 as "legal numerology" by picking and choosing extracts from statutes and cases and weaving them together in an attempt to create logical links where none exist.

[80] Section 32 of the Charter mandates that the Charter applies to government actions such as the RCMP's investigation and arrest of the applicant in this case, which means that the applicant's Charter rights are to be observed and protected in the carrying out of such actions. The Charter does not, however, govern interactions between private citizens. Moreover, s. 32 of the Charter does not stand for the notion that as a private citizen the Constitution and the laws of Canada do not apply to the applicant and his actions.

[81] If the applicant is trying to assert the Court has no jurisdiction over him to try the offences because, by virtue of s. 32 of the Charter, the Constitution and the laws under which he is charged only applies to government agents, and he is not a government agent, he has fundamentally misconceived what s. 32 of the Charter means and what the jurisprudence has interpreted its purpose to be.

[82] If the applicant is trying to advance the argument that the laws under which he is charged do not apply to him because he is not a government agent, again he is mistaken.

[83] If the applicant is suggesting the Court has no jurisdiction over him to try the offences because he is a private citizen and thus outside of the Court�s jurisdiction, then, as Mr. Justice Hollinrake noted in R. v. Warman, 2001 BCCA 510 (CanLII), 2001 BCCA 510 at para. 13 [Warman], his argument would be "a complete denial of the constitutional history of this country as it applies to the rights and obligations of its people before the law." Arguments of this kind must be and are "rejected as being without any legal, historical or constitutional foundation whatsoever": Warman, at para. 14.

[84] There is no legal merit in the point the applicant advances under s. 32 of the Charter