PUB2 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: English Criminal Law, Jeremy Bentham, Criminal Law Of Canada

• School: McGill University
• Department: Public Law 2
• Course: PUB2 111
• Professor: Maxime Hebrard

Document Summary

The principle of legality (constraints on the power of the state to punish) This became inconsistent and a messy system of crime and definitions: that"s because the nature of precedent is conservative: it looks to the past. Also, move away from criminalizing certain conducts - introduction of the harm principle. Minimize intervention of the state with regards to individual freedom and liberty. In the cvl system, there is the principle of lex certa. The charter revolutionized canadian common law and set it on a different path. In canada, unlike the us (federal criminal law with regards to federal matters), criminal law is exclusively a matter of the federal government: so before, legislation was one means of ensuring the law remained consistent. However, there was no formal procedure for judicial review: although it"s only federal, with regards to criminal law, there is no common law/civil law distinction. So criminal law is english common law, there is very little cvl influence.