When guilty people go free because their constitutional rights have been violated, there's a danger the public will begin to see the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as little more than "a game of snakes and ladders," a judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal says. …"It seems to me if you get to the point where there's a perception the Charter has, in fact, become a game of snakes and ladders, where criminal trial results depend on things that have nothing to do with the merits of the case, the public perception will be these rights are not really rights that are important to us," he said.
Despite an astonishing array of legal rights, its citizens are reaching the point where few genuinely believe in those rights and don't expect them to be enforced, he contended.
My personal favourite quote is this one from a Crown Attorney:
"The Charter gave Constitutional jurisdiction to every mutt in the country,' he said, with each of those judges aquiring power to strike down laws or toss out charges for individual rights violations.
"The first thing that had to be recognized was there was going to be a huge spectrum of intellectual ability that was going to be addressing these very important questions, and that was going to lead to results that were all over the place."
For those not fully initiated into legal-speak, let me translate for you:
“huge spectrum of intellectual ability” = “lot of really stupid judges out there who are going to screw this thing up but good.”
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