Section 9-24 Essay

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When Canada created the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they set it as “supreme law”, meaning that all other laws must follow and abide by the charter. This means that police also need to uphold the Charter. For example, Sections 8-10 and 24 especially have an impact on police. Section 8 says, “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure” (2018). Police officers perform searches all the time, whether it be after an arrest, enforcing a search warrant, pat downs for officer safety, etc. Police officers need to abide by this law, otherwise any evidence they might have seized can be thrown out of court, or the subject being arrested could be released! The same applies to section 9, where it says that every person in this country cannot be “arbitrarily …show more content…

Section 10, meanwhile, explains that when someone is arrested, they have the right to know why, and give them the right to instruct counsel without delay. This is why all police officers read a “caution” from a piece of paper, or their notebook that details all their rights. If they do not do this, then the arrest can be made invalid and the person arrested can walk! Finally, Section 24 of the Charter states that any person who has had their Charter rights denied or infringed on can apply to the courts for remedy (2018). Basically, if my rights have been violated, I can seek compensation from the agency that infringed on my rights, which makes the particular police officer look very bad in the eyes of the public, and even his own agency!To make one last point, a co-worker/boss of mine, Dean Boyer, works for the Corporate Investigations department for Alberta Health Services, and he investigates claims of excessive force, charter violations, or other complaints. I asked him about his opinion, and he stated that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was created for police officers. It was set out

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