The Recent Erosion of Criminal Law Protections

Resumo

Since the events of September eleventh, 2001, there has been a major change within the application of criminal law protections within Canada. These changes have resulted in the erosion of criminal law protections that once shielded Canadian citizens from the monopoly of power that the state exercises. Nevertheless, these changes have left Canadian’s defenseless against the legal system as the cardinal rules that Beccaria (1963) once theorized as the foundation of criminal law have shifted to a manner of precautionary policing. The goal of this paper is to provide an understanding of how these principles work in practice, over theory, through using relevant examples to denote the significance they have on Canadians. By the end of this paper, it will have been demonstrated with clarity that there has been a significant change in the criminal law procedures that Canadian’s once knew, and that legislation now protects the government from society, rather than society from the government.

Keywords: Criminal Law, Canada, protections, precautionary harm, corrective training